A driver for the ride-sharing service Uber was arrested Thursday afternoon, April 30, 2026 during a traffic stop by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, after the driver tried to pass himself off as a law enforcement officer.

The driver, 49-year-old John Edouard Gerlus of Orlando, was subsequently taken to the Sheriff’s Processing Center and charged with Impersonating a LEO (F3) and Resisting without Violence (M1).

At approximately 12:22 pm, a deputy noticed Gerlus’ 2016 Honda Crosstour failing to stop for a traffic light, and a traffic stop was conducted on Lakeland Hills Boulevard (SR 33) at Bridgewater Center Lane in Lakeland. 

When the vehicles came to a stop, Gerlus quickly exited the car and began approaching the deputy, who told him repeatedly to stop and go back to his car.

Gerlus then told the deputy that he was a police officer, while showing a New York Police Department badge and a photo of himself in a police uniform. Gerlus said he currently works for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

Gerlus tried unsuccessfully to resist the deputy’s efforts to detain him for the investigation.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office was contacted and denied that Gerlus was an employee. They did say that Gerlus was going through the hiring process.

Eventually, Gerlus admitted that he was not a law enforcement officer, and that he got the NYPD badge from a friend who is a dispatcher in New York.

At the time of the traffic stop, Gerlus had customers in the back seat of his car-- a couple from Massachusetts who were being transported from the airport to a vacation rental home in Lakeland.

John Gerlus was taken to jail while another deputy took the couple to the vacation rental which was approximately five miles away.