HOWEY IN THE HILLS, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A Florida police chief has resigned after he was accused of having sex with the wife of a man he was investigating, according to reporting by WESH.<\/p>\n
According to a report obtained by WESH, former Howey-in-the-Hills<\/a> Police Chief Michael Giddens violated sections of town and police policy related to moral character and sex while on duty. The report says the investigation began with a phone call to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent last November, during which the caller described a text message thread between his girlfriend and Giddens.<\/p>\n According to WESH, the caller alleged the messages showed Giddens had been conducting a fraud investigation involving the woman’s husband the previous spring. The woman had filed for divorce before beginning a relationship with the caller. <\/p>\n See also: Orlando man arrested after Juno Beach child sex abuse investigation <\/a><\/p>\n The report states the caller told investigators that while Giddens was investigating the husband and communicating with the wife, the two met at a hotel in March 2025, where they had lunch and engaged in consensual sex.<\/p>\n According to the report obtained by WESH, the woman later told her new boyfriend she was ashamed, but the text messages between Giddens and the woman continued.<\/p>\n WESH reported that investigators interviewed the woman again in April 2026. She acknowledged continuing to text both Giddens and her incarcerated ex-husband, telling investigators she was “just being a nice person.”<\/p>\n According to WESH, an anonymous email detailing the allegations was later sent to town employees in May, prompting Giddens’ suspension. He later resigned, and the town of Howey-in-the-Hills enlisted the Lake County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a concurrent investigation alongside the Florida Department of Law Enforcement<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOWEY IN THE HILLS, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 A Florida police chief has resigned after he was accused of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-344024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}