BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — The Brevard County Sheriff’s Office named Michael Fultz its 2025 Deputy of the Year and pinned a Medal of Valor on him at a ceremony in March. Roughly two months later, he was gone, resigning as Sheriff Wayne Ivey moved to fire him over what the agency’s own investigators labeled “egregious misconduct.”
The sheriff’s office never announced it. The internal affairs file surfaced this week through records obtained by WKMG News 6 investigative reporter Mike DeForest, nearly three months after Fultz turned in his resignation on May 27.
From Medal of Valor to internal investigation in one day
BCSO hired Fultz as a probationary deputy in September 2024. Seven months later, in April 2025, he shot and killed a suicidal man who the agency said charged him with a knife during a disturbance call. That shooting is what earned him the agency’s top honor. A tribute video played at the March awards ceremony described a deputy who acted with courage and restraint under life-threatening pressure.
On the same day the agency was honoring him, Fultz’s ex-girlfriend emailed the sheriff’s office a list of allegations against him. She wrote that she was not seeking retaliation, only making the agency aware of conduct she believed conflicted with departmental standards. BCSO opened an administrative investigation immediately.
Investigators could not substantiate everything she alleged. But according to the records, Fultz admitted to a substantial portion of it.
What investigators documented
A firearm used during sex. Fultz confirmed that images provided by his ex-girlfriend showed him placing a gun in her mouth and pointing it at the back of her head during sex. She told investigators the encounters were consensual but said she came to view the conduct as alarming for a sworn deputy. Fultz said the weapon was his personal firearm. Investigators noted the gun resembled the agency-issued handgun assigned to him right after the April 2025 fatal shooting. He acknowledged disregarding the firearms safety training he had been given.
A photograph investigators described as a Nazi salute. A 2023 image, taken before Fultz was hired, showed him with his mustache trimmed in a manner investigators described as mimicking Adolf Hitler while appearing to give a Nazi salute. Fultz admitted posing for it, denied being racist, and characterized the photo as a joke.
Racial slurs in text messages. Fultz, who is white, verified the authenticity of texts in which he repeatedly used a racial slur. He told investigators he was raised in a foster home with Black parents and siblings and that the language had become normalized to him. He agreed a law enforcement officer should not use derogatory language regardless of intent, and denied hearing other BCSO deputies do so.
A FaceTime call from a marked patrol vehicle. The ex-girlfriend gave investigators screenshots from a video call showing Fultz in uniform inside his patrol car. She said the images showed him performing a sex act on himself. Investigators concluded the screenshots were not clear enough to determine what he was doing. Fultz denied masturbating on duty and said he was only pretending to during the call.
The Flock search
The allegation with the broadest public implications involves the agency’s Flock Safety license plate reader network.
Fultz’s ex-girlfriend told investigators he had once talked about watching her through the camera system, though she could not confirm he had actually tracked her vehicle. When BCSO audited its own Flock system, investigators found that Fultz had run her license plate on one occasion before the start of a shift. The query was logged in the system as being for “investigation” purposes.
Fultz denied running the tag to spy on her or out of revenge, and told investigators he could not explain why he had queried a private citizen’s registration while off duty.
Officers in other jurisdictions have faced criminal charges for misusing law enforcement databases for personal reasons. There is no indication in the file that Fultz was criminally investigated. When News 6 asked, a sheriff’s office spokesperson pointed back to the administrative report, which makes no mention of a criminal inquiry.
Brevard County’s Flock network has expanded steadily with limited public discussion of who audits it, how often, and what happens when a search cannot be justified. This case is one of the few documented instances of the answer becoming public, and it became public only because a broken relationship produced a complaint.
111 mph, and a $155 ticket
The portion of the file most likely to draw scrutiny beyond BCSO involves the Florida Highway Patrol.
Investigators found Fultz had been stopped by other agencies at least four times in two months while riding his motorcycle off duty, and had not reported any of those stops to his supervisors as agency policy required.
In February, an FHP trooper documented Fultz’s motorcycle traveling 111 mph on U.S. 192 near Melbourne. Under Florida Statute 316.1922, created by House Bill 351 and effective July 1, 2025, dangerous excessive speeding is a criminal offense when a driver exceeds the limit by 50 mph or more, or hits 100 mph or more in a manner threatening the safety of others. A first conviction is a second-degree misdemeanor carrying up to 30 days in jail, a fine of up to $500, and a mandatory court appearance. There is no paying it off by mail.
Fultz was not arrested. Records show FHP wrote him a civil citation for traveling 6 to 9 mph over the limit. He paid $155.
Sheriff’s investigators wrote that Trooper Joshua Provencher knew the speed and traffic conditions met the criminal threshold under the new law. They also noted Fultz conceded his speed violated the statute and that he was aware both BCSO and FHP were running an aggressive campaign against excessive speeding at the time.
FHP did not answer questions from News 6 about the stop.
Melbourne police stopped Fultz twice for an intentionally concealed motorcycle tag and ticketed him for neither. He said the plate had been hidden for a photo shoot. After sheriff’s officials ordered him to keep the tag visible, surveillance cameras recorded him leaving the BCSO parking lot with no plate on the bike at all.
Ivey’s memo, and Fultz’s response
Ivey wrote in a memo to Fultz that the nature and severity of the misconduct had irreparably damaged the trust required of a deputy sheriff and created unacceptable risk and potential liability for the agency. Fultz resigned before he could be terminated.
A sheriff’s office spokesperson said nothing in Fultz’s application or background check should have prompted a closer look before he was hired.
In a written statement to News 6, Fultz apologized to the agency, his former colleagues, his family and Brevard County residents. He said he was young, made poor decisions, and takes responsibility for his own conduct. He also said he does not agree with every conclusion in the investigation, noted that not every allegation was substantiated, and said he would not respond by releasing private communications of his own.
The unanswered questions
Three stand out.
First, whether the Flock query was ever referred for criminal review, and if not, who made that call.
Second, why a trooper who believed a driver met the criminal threshold of a brand-new state law wrote that driver a ticket for 6 to 9 over instead, and whether FHP has reviewed the trooper’s handling of the stop.
Third, whether the case was submitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, which decides whether a former officer keeps his certification and can be hired somewhere else. Resignation ahead of termination does not by itself bar a return to Florida law enforcement.
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