JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 34-year-old Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer resigned shortly before he was arrested in connection to a sex crime investigation involving a teenage girl, according to JSO.
According to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, deputies received a call on March 3 from a woman concerned with something she found on her 17-year-old daughter’s cellphone. The mother said she discovered inappropriate communications between her daughter and a man, who was identified as Josue’ Garriga III.
The girl’s mother said she noticed flirtatious behavior between her daughter and Garriga at church.
During the investigation, the CCSO learned there were 350 contacts or contact attempts through phone or FaceTime video calls between Oct. 2, 2023, and March 6, 2024.
They confirmed that Garriga was the person the teen was talking to on the phone, and verified the incident at the church through a witness, according to CCSO.
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Investigators also talked to the teen, who told them that she met Garriga at church and exchanged phone numbers with him. According to deputies, she said he told her to download WhatsApp so they could communicate.
Deputies said he used the app to send the teen nudes of himself and ask her for photos.
The last in-person interaction between the teen and Garriga was caught on video at a business in Clay County. The teen told deputies that there was “inappropriate physical interaction” with Garriga in his vehicle.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Tom Hackney called the situation “infuriating.”
“You hear about these kinds of things happening and there isn’t a law enforcement officer; male or female worth their salt, not just in Jacksonville but anywhere that hears about this and doesn’t get their stomach turned,” he said.
Garriga was arrested and charged with unlawful sexual activity with certain minors, lewd touching of certain minors, traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual activity, unlawful use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony, and transmission of harmful material to a minor.
The investigation with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office is ongoing and it is believed there could be other victims.
Garriga was hired by JSO in July 2018 and was assigned to the investigations division. He has since resigned from his position, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Garriga was at the center of a State Attorney’s Office investigation in 2019 after he shot and killed 22-year-old Jamee Johnson during a traffic stop. The interaction that went violent when Johnson and Garriga got into a scuffle was caught on police bodycam. Although the SAO ruled the shooting justifiable, Johnson’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against the city. The city settled the case for $200,000.
Anyone with information surrounding this incident or any other inappropriate interactions between Garriga and a minor should call 904-264-6512.
Garriga appeared in front of a Clay County judge on Thursday morning and was order to have no contact with the alleged victim and to wear a GPS monitor.
His next court hearing is set for April 23.