Hillsborough deputy resigns over forgeries

TAMPA — A Hillsborough County sheriff's deputy has resigned after an internal investigation found he forged the signatures of his supervisors on three DUI reports.

Deputy Justin Speaks, 36, told Sgt. William Porter he turned in a forged report from a March 30 incident because it was two weeks late and needed to get to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, according to an internal affairs report.

Speaks said he asked his wife, Linda Speaks, a breath technician with the Sheriff's Office, to sign Porter's name on the report for him. Linda Speaks denied that. She resigned in August.

Justin Speaks, who has five years with the agency, also told investigators he fraudulently signed the signatures of Sgt. Ronald Harrison and Sgt. Richard Figueredo on reports in the "distant past."

Harrison died while operating a DUI checkpoint in Brandon on Aug. 15, 2007, after being shot by Michael Phillips, who later barricaded himself inside his mother's house until police snipers shot him to death.

The Sheriff's Office found Speaks violated three agency rules, including felony forgery, uttering a forged instrument and conduct unbecoming of a member of the Sheriff's Office.

As a result of the investigation, the State Attorney's Office is not pursuing prosecution on some of Speaks' driving-under-the-influence cases.

Rebecca Catalanello can be reached at rcatalanello@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3383.