An 18-year-old Gainesville man bonded out of the St. Johns County Jail after authorities say he showed up to a youth facility where he was once an inmate dressed as a Department of Homeland Security agent.
Christopher Leon Levins, a convicted felon, reportedly showed up at the St. Johns Youth Academy in a pickup truck outfitted with red and white emergency lights and a siren and claimed to be a Homeland Security agent.
Levins had a holstered gun and Homeland Security badge and was wearing a polo shirt with a Homeland Security emblem on the chest.
The police report said that Levins is a former inmate of the St. Johns Youth Academy.
“He’s looking at 5 years’ state time for impersonating a police officer,” Action News Jax law and safety expert Dale Carson said.
Levins was out on bond after he claimed to be an undercover Florida Department of Law Enforcement officer in Alachua County last month.
The police report said he claimed to be an undercover FDLE agent and a K-9 handler on social media.
Officers searched his car and found a pistol with seven bullets inside.
They said they found more guns and ammunition in Levins’ home, along with a black baseball cap with the word “Sheriff” on it and a police vest with “K-9” on it.
“It’s very dangerous when they do this. Unfortunately, the clothing, the badge, all of these things are available readily online,” Carson said.
He said there’s not a lot of restriction on the production of such items, just a restriction on the use of them.
Levins was released on a $7,500 bond on the new charges out of St. Johns County.