December 12, 2023

A jury found an Aventura police officer guilty of all charges related to an incident where he illegally detained two men and pointed a gun at them in a misunderstanding over a cellphone, Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor announced on Tuesday.

Jurors reached their verdict on Tuesday afternoon after deliberating for about eight hours at the conclusion of the trial in Broward Circuit Court.

They found David Delgado, (DOB 03/11/1993), guilty of two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of false imprisonment, all felonies, and one count of battery, a misdemeanor.

The evidence showed that the officer took the law into his own hands after he assumed that the two men were trying to steal a cellphone from his wife. They had accidentally ended up with her cellphone after she valeted their car at the Aventura Mall on May 20, 2023.

The men had several phone conversations with his wife and tried to meet up with her to return her phone. The men, who are musicians, performed at a festival at Bayfront Park that day and were rushing to perform at a second event the same day in Lauderhill. When their efforts to meet up failed, they told the woman they had to rush to the second event but they would return it to her the next day in Aventura.

According to the evidence and testimony in trial, Delgado tracked the phone, drove at high speed from Miami to Broward, and showed up in uniform in his marked Aventura Police Department vehicle at their location in Pompano Beach. The victims said he pointed his gun at them, detained them, pushed one of the men against the police cruiser and handcuffed him. The men explained that they had been communicating with the woman about safely returning the phone and handed it over immediately.

“Our job is to pursue justice and hold offenders accountable whether they wear a badge or not,” said Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor. “Nobody is above the law.”

The trial prosecutors were Assistant State Attorneys Justin McCormack and Janine Rice.

Sentencing by Broward Circuit Judge Gary M. Farmer, Jr. will be scheduled early next year. The officer remains free on bond pending sentencing. The maximum possible penalty for the offenses is up to 21 years in state prison but the defendant’s preliminary sentencing guidelines recommend a prison term of more than 3 1/2 years in state prison.

Public records are available under case # 23006745CF10A on www.browardclerk.org