{"id":56276,"date":"2025-06-11T00:26:56","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=56276"},"modified":"2025-06-11T00:27:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:27:34","slug":"officer-fired-for-drinking-on-the-job-gets-arrested-for-dui-in-polk-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/06\/11\/officer-fired-for-drinking-on-the-job-gets-arrested-for-dui-in-polk-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Officer fired for drinking on the job gets arrested for DUI in Polk County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A former police officer who was fired for drinking on the job was accused of driving under the influence in Polk County.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Michael Dimeglio, 42, nearly crashed into a deputy\u2019s patrol vehicle on Socrum Loop Road North in Lakeland on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputies reported Dimeglio\u2019s Camaro veering between lanes and into oncoming traffic. A deputy stopped him after a near-collision, noting that he \u201cfailed to stop his car multiple times before finally coming to a stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimeglio\u2019s breath smelled of alcohol and he had bloodshot, watery eyes, according to PCSO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen asked for his driver\u2019s license, he began patting his pockets then looked up without saying anything,\u201d a sheriff\u2019s office news release said. \u201cHe was asked a second time, to which he reacted as if he had forgotten and looked within his center console, looked up, and failed to respond again. After being asked for the third time, he claimed the license was in the trunk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dimeglio was described as being unsteady when he exited the car and needed to learn on it for support. Deputies said he slurred his speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told deputies he was driving back from the beach and consumed alcohol while he was there, according to PCSO. He had a BAC of 0.168 and was charged with DUI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis reckless behavior put lives in danger, and it\u2019s especially disappointing coming from someone who once wore a badge. Law enforcement officers are held to a higher standard, and this former officer made a choice that could have cost lives,\u201d Sheriff Grady Judd said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former police officer who was fired for drinking on the job was accused of driving under the influence in Polk County. The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Michael Dimeglio,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDZcL01pY2hhZWwtRGltZWdsaW8ud2VicD9maXQ9MTAyNCUyQzk5NSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ik9mZmljZXIgZmlyZWQgZm9yIGRyaW5raW5nIG9uIHRoZSBqb2IgZ2V0cyBhcnJlc3RlZCBmb3IgRFVJIGluIFBvbGsgQ291bnR5IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.IbhJ0PsI2MEPUTv7vLoc1ppXxmI1eHMAeqY0CUrMdJEMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":56277,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Michael-Dimeglio.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11680],"class_list":["post-56276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-officer-fired-for-drinking-on-the-job-gets-arrested-for-dui-in-polk-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56278,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56276\/revisions\/56278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}