A Florida deputy allegedly kept showing up at a 17-year-old’s job calling her his ‘queen’ while running her family through police databases

Two former Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies were arrested on Wednesday after internal investigations found they allegedly misused official law enforcement databases to track women. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri announced the charges during a press briefing, according to WSVN. Both men were former deputies by then, as each had resigned during the investigations.

The first case involves Travis Stanton, who faces one count of official misconduct and one count of accessing a computer or electronic device without authority. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office began investigating him on Aug. 26 after a juvenile victim filed an online complaint. Investigators said Stanton visited the 17-year-old at her workplace at least nine times between late July and mid-September.

During those visits, he allegedly spoke with her about her suspended license and other topics while calling her his “queen,” officials said. Stanton is also accused of running the girl and her family members through multiple databases, even though she did not return his romantic interest.

The sheriff says both deputies knew what they were doing was wrong

Stanton, who had been with the department since 2017, resigned on Sept. 25 while still under investigation. The second case involves Karl Gwynne, who faces four counts of accessing a computer or electronic device without authority and one count of official misconduct. His alleged conduct came to light in August after a media inquiry prompted the sheriff’s office to audit its Automated License Plate Recognition system.

The audit allegedly showed Gwynne ran queries on one woman 381 times across five law enforcement databases between January 2025 and July 2026. According to the sheriff’s office, he had let the woman and her mother stay in a condo he owned in 2025, bought her gifts, and told her he wanted to date her. She repeatedly rejected his advances and said she only wanted to be friends, officials said. Gwynne resigned on Sept. 11, the same day investigators questioned him about the database searches.

Gualtieri criticized both former deputies during the press conference. “They knew they did wrong, especially with a 17-year-old girl,” he said. In a separate case, deputies recently tracked down a stolen car with a child inside before the situation turned into an armed standoff. Both men have since bonded out of jail, and neither has been convicted.