A Pinellas County deputy showed up heavily intoxicated at a Mothers Against Drunk Driving conference in July, according to records recently obtained by WFLA .
Officer Michael Szeliga was at the MADD conference to receive an award for making more than 100 DUI arrests.
A police chief also attending the event called one of Szeliga’s supervisors to inform the supervisor that Szeliga was wasted, according to WFLA. At one point, Szeliga was seen in the hotel hallway wearing “nothing but boxer shorts,” and one witness described him as pretty drunk, WFLA reports.
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Upon further investigation, it was discovered that Szeliga allegedly packed a bottle of liquor in his luggage for that weekend and skipped out early on two days of DUI law enforcement training classes at the conference, WFLA reports.
“When I first heard about it. My reaction was ‘Come on, you’ve got to be kidding me. Really?’” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said to WFLA in October.
WFLA reports Szeliga was suspended for one day and now works as a detective in thePinellas County Sheriff's Office crimes against children unit. His MADD award was revoked.
Read more at wfla.com
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