ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office has filed criminal charges against a former Orlando Police Officer, “Officer of the Year,” sources tell News 6.
State Attorney Monique Worrell has filed charges against Jonathan Mills for sexual battery by a law enforcement officer, a first-degree felony, along with a second charge of battery.
In 2017, the Orlando Police Department praised officer Mills for helping a man fill out a job application near Lake Eola.
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In 2018, Mills posted a photo after OPD named him Patrol Officer of the Year, but during his time with the department, Mills also had a string of allegations of showing racial bias and lying in police reports — and now come criminal charges.
Caila Coleman is an attorney and Chair of OPD’s Citizens Review Board and says Mills’ name is a familiar one.
“He has been involved in several investigations,” Coleman said. “His cases came before us several times, and every time we reviewed a case, his actions were egregious.”
The sexual battery by a law enforcement officer and battery charges stem from a traffic incident in 2014.
Mills and an OPD sargeant pulled over a vehicle near the intersection of S.R 50 and Orange Blossom Trail after the department released a “Be on the Lookout” for a grey Toyota Corolla, according to an investigative report.
The two officers pulled over a silver Nissan Sentra and after checking ids “determined [the people in the vehicle] were not the subjects being looked for in the BOLO,” according to the report.
The passenger of the vehicle filed a complaint the same day and later a civil suit against Mills.
The alleged victim claimed Mills thought he had marijuana on him and grabbed his genitals while searching him and then did a body cavity search while he was pressed against the car on the side of the road.
The alleged victim testified during a deposition, “I’ve never had anything like that happen to me, like, by anybody. And it was a police officer — the ones that are supposed to protect you,” according to the report.
The state attorney’s office started an investigation after a video surfaced on Youtube making the same allegations against Mills.
Coleman said the citizens’ review board tried to get Mills fired many times over the years.
“We wrote a letter to the chief asking for his termination,” Coleman said.
Orlando police did an investigation after the victim filed the complaint in 2014, according to an Internal Affairs report provided to News 6, but since neither officer had on body cameras they could not confirm or deny the allegations.
Mills was not punished, according to the report. He will now face criminal charges.