New details emerged Monday about last week’s arrest of a Broward Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy who has been charged with official misconduct, forgery, scheme to defraud and grand theft.
Joshua Marc Passman, 44, was fired last week after his arrest. According to a probable cause affidavit outlining the case against him, Passman faked his working hours to be paid for time he wasn’t on the job and to boost his eventual retirement check.
Passman was originally hired by the Sheriff’s Office in 2006 and rose to the rank of sergeant before leaving the agency in 2022 for a private sector job. He remained with BSO as a reserve officer.
According to the affidavit, Passman submitted time sheets for 21 full working days throughout calendar year 2024, resulting in payments of about $3,200. The time sheets all bore the signature of a supervisor who told investigators he never saw the timesheets and never approved of them. The signature on the timesheets did not match the supervisor’s signature, according to the report.
Phone records show Passman was not in South Florida for some of the days he claimed to work, and was not in Broward County on some days he claimed to be attending meetings in Fort Lauderdale.
“A specific benefit of Passman’s continued service with the Broward Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy … allows him to fulfill service credit years necessary for vesting and eligibility under the Florida Retirement System,” according to Detective Daniel Sanchez, writing in the probable cause document. “The charges being presented suggest that Passman’s motive behind the actions detailed in this investigation was to accumulate sufficient service time through his misrepresented or inflated documentation to reach a threshold for monetary pension benefits.”
Attempts to reach Passman’s lawyer on Monday, a holiday, were unsuccessful.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.