New Port Richey officer fired amid allegations of fondling girl in custody

A New Port Richey police corporal has lost his job after an internal investigation confirmed allegations of sexual misconduct raised by a 17-year-old girl who was in his custody.

According to the New Port Richey Police Department, former police corporal Bobby Lubrido, 43, is not facing any criminal charges stemming from the allegations — that he first engaged in inappropriate and explicit conversations while looking at naked photos of the girl on her cellphone before groping her buttocks and breasts.

Still, according to an internal affairs report obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, the probe turned up enough information for New Port Richey Police Chief Kim Bogart to dismiss Lubrido, determining that his “actions in this matter were in violation of numerous departmental rules, regulations and departmental procedures” and that those “improper and unbecoming” actions have “absolutely affected your reputation.”

Lubrido worked for the agency for five years and had no previous disciplinary issues, records show. Before then, he worked as a police officer in Oveido for 10 years and was an Orange County corrections officer for two years.

According to the final disposition of the internal affairs investigation, Lubrido didn’t contest the probe’s findings and decided not to meet with Bogart before his firing.

“He said he did not believe he did anything immoral or illegal,” but Lubrido also “admitted to breaking protocol when he did not properly transport” the girl, Detective Edward Campbell wrote in a summary report of his investigation into the allegations.

According to that internal affairs report, the incident occurred on July 13.

The girl, who has not been publicly named by police, had recently been deemed a runaway when she was spotted by a detective off Ginny Drive in Port Richey. That detective took the girl to Morton Plant North Bay Hospital for a checkup, then arranged to have Lubrido take her to the Juvenile Assessment Center, the report said.

According to the report, the girl asked Lubrido to turn the radio to a specific music channel, and he placed her cellphone on his charger in the front seat at her request. When they arrived at the jail, however, Lubrido was told he was missing signatures on her medical clearance paperwork, which meant he and the girl had to drive back to the hospital.

In his patrol car, Lubrido again placed the girl’s phone on his charger, but this time asked for the password to access the phone. The girl gave it to him but said she was surprised when he started looking at her photo gallery and watching videos of her “twerking” while making comments about her “ass,” the report said.

The girl told detectives Lubrido admitted he was “really trying to see what your (breasts) look like,” and eventually logged into her Snapchat account, where he found a photo of the juvenile’s bare breasts, the report said. Lubrido took a photo of the picture with his phone and continued looking at the naked image while driving back to the hospital, investigators wrote — making sexually explicit comments as he drove.

According to the report, the police corporal was so distracted by the photos that he hit a deer while driving, which was corroborated by dash camera footage and a phone call he made to the agency to report he hit a deer.

Lubrido then arrived at the hospital and obtained the signatures needed for the girl’s medical clearance. He let her eat half of his sandwich, without handcuffs, outside of his cruiser. The girl told investigators she engaged the police officer in sexually explicit banter, hoping he would let her go, the report said. He assured her his body-worn camera had been turned off and that cameras and audio recorders in his vehicle wouldn’t capture their encounter, then handcuffed her again when she was done eating.

The girl told detectives that Lubrido told her, “That sandwich wasn’t free,” and groped her bottom as he cuffed her hands behind her back and placed her into his backseat, the report said. The girl said he then lifted her shirt and bra and groped her breasts.

The girl told investigators that Lubrido pulled up her mother’s photo on his in-vehicle computer and asked if she would be interested in having a “threesome,” to which the girl said no, the report said. She also told Campbell that Lubrido said he would come to her house later to “check up on her.”

“She told me the entire incident made her fearful and untrusting of police,” Campbell wrote.

A review of Lubrido’s patrol vehicle footage showed that no audio from the incident was captured, but movements seemed to corroborate the girl’s story, as did a forensic analysis of the photos and videos accessed on her phone. At one point, the camera captures the girl’s sweatshirt being moved up over her chest while Lubrido placed her in the vehicle, but then the image is blocked by the glare of his flashlight, the report said. No footage of the alleged groping was recovered.

Lubrido denied the girl’s allegations in an interview with investigators, police said.

“When I told him his testimony was inconsistent with the video evidence, he replied ‘yeah,’” Detective Campbell wrote in the report.

Lubrido did not respond to three phone calls from the Times seeking comment for this story.