State police charged an Olyphant man with impersonating a fire captain as he was interacting with a motorist along Interstate 81.<\/p>\n
According to the criminal complaint:<\/p>\n
On Jan. 29, troopers were called to Interstate 81 north near mile marker 183 in Scranton, after receiving a report that a man was possibly impersonating a police officer.<\/p>\n
Troopers found Samuel Antonio Rodriguez-Ramos, 47, of 131 Susquehanna Ave., who presented himself as an active-duty fire captain with with Snake Creek Fire Company in Susquehanna County.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez-Ramos was wearing his full uniform, which consisted of a light blue dress shirt, Snake Creek Fire Company shoulder patches, a gold-colored, chest-mounted shield, a gold mounted rank plate inscribed with \u201cSusquehanna Co. Fire Department, Captain\u201d and dark navy uniform pants.<\/p>\n
He told troopers he was on his way to work at the fire company when he encountered a disabled motorist roadside, so he activated the emergency blue and red strobing lights magnetically mounted to the roof of his 2019 Hyundai Kona to render assistance.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0 identified himself to the motorist as a public official, namely a fire captain, and gained the motorist\u2019s trust to check his vehicle, collect his personal information and arrange a tow for him.<\/p>\n
He did not notify either Susquehanna County or Lackawanna County authorities of his operation, as would be customary.<\/p>\n
Officers searched Rodriguez-Ramos\u2019 vehicle and found methamphetamine.<\/p>\n
Troopers learned through Susquehanna County officials that the Snake Creek Fire Company had been formally disbanded and de-certified by authority of Liberty Twp. effective in April 2025.<\/p>\n
Further, Rodriguez-Ramos had never served at the department and his vehicle was not authorized for using emergency lighting.<\/p>\n
He is charged with impersonating a public servant, possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and unauthorized use of emergency lights.<\/p>\n
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on May 4 before District Judge Joanne Corbett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State police charged an Olyphant man with impersonating a fire captain as he was interacting with a motorist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,201,182,139,2120,28,178,180,179,2942],"class_list":{"0":"post-154423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","9":"tag-lackawanna-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-olyphant","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-scranton","15":"tag-scranton-headlines","16":"tag-scranton-news","17":"tag-susquehanna-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}