Collier deputy fired for misconduct involving ex-girlfriend

NAPLES - A Collier County Sheriff’s Office deputy was fired this week after an internal investigation found that he made false statements to investigators and used a law enforcement database to look up information about a then-girlfriend.

A monthslong investigation into allegations brought against Cpl. Vito Celiberti by his ex-girlfriend Rebekah Wells shows that he accessed her information through the Driver and Vehicle Information Database “for purposes that are not authorized” while the two were dating, according to a memo from the Sheriff’s Office’s Professional Responsibility Bureau.

The memo also states that Celiberti, who was first hired by the Sheriff’s Office in 1989, “willfully departed from the truth” when investigators questioned him about an incident at his residence involving Wells and her mother, and a text message he sent to Wells after their breakup about sexually explicit videos of her.

Sheriff Kevin Rambosk approved the findings Tuesday, the day Celiberti was fired.

When contacted by a reporter Thursday, Celiberti denied the allegations detailed in the memo and said his lawyer would issue a statement at a later time.

He said the memo was incomplete and “not factual” and that the whole file needed to be examined, but he declined to comment further because he said he had a family emergency.

“That headline that is out there is not even a factual headline,” Celiberti said about a Wednesday report from another media outlet.

The Sheriff’s Office investigation into Celiberti’s conduct began after Wells in November 2015 met with deputies at the Sheriff’s Office and told them that Celiberti “may have posted photographs or videos of her on revenge porn websites,” the report states.

She also alleged that he “misused his position as a Law Enforcement Officer to intimidate” her and her mother, including an incident at Celiberti’s residence in early 2012.

Wells met Celiberti in November 2010 when she spoke to him about nude pictures she believed her ex-boyfriend at the time had posted of her online as revenge after their breakup.

As the North Naples misdemeanor investigator, Celiberti took the case, and Wells turned over videos and photographs to him, the investigation revealed.

According to the Sheriff’s Office report, Celiberti later told investigators that a report for the case never was completed because the ex-boyfriend had residences outside Collier County, it wasn’t established if Wells lived in Ohio or Florida when the incident occurred, and it had not yet been established whether her complaint was criminal or civil in nature.

After speaking to Celiberti again about the case almost a year later, Wells said the deputy assured her he would do his best to help her. Soon after, Wells said, the deputy told her the case was closed but later gave her his personal cellphone number and asked her out on a date.

Celiberti told investigators that Wells wanted to “put a face with the name” and wanted to thank him when she contacted him in 2011.

He said that he received multiple calls from her at his office and that she asked him out on a date, according to the report. Celiberti also told investigators he initially told her he does not date individuals involved in work-related matters.

“He said she told him that since he wasn’t actually working her case, they could go on a date,” the Sheriff’s Office report states.

Eventually, the two started dating and living together.

In early 2012 after an argument between Celiberti and Wells at his home, Celiberti would not let her retrieve her belongings from his residence, she told investigators.

When Wells’ mother and her friend arrived at the home to help, Wells told investigators, Celiberti took the key out of the ignition of their car to prevent them from leaving and called the Sheriff’s Office to have deputies issue a trespass warning.

In interviews with investigators, Celiberti denied that he prevented Wells from removing her belongings and said he didn’t take the car key, because he wanted them to leave.

After reviewing the case, investigators said that “some of Cpl. Celiberti’s testimony was in conflict with the evidence,” the memo states. They wrote that Wells, her mother, their friend and a deputy who responded to the incident gave sworn testimony that Celiberti took the key.

Investigators also said that a text message from Celiberti to Wells revealed that he threatened “to compare sexually explicit videos with her ex-boyfriend,” according to the memo.

But when investigators questioned Celiberti about the text message under oath, he testified “that he never mentioned comparing sex videos or pictures” and denied sending Wells a text message about it, the memo states.

The investigation also revealed that Celiberti had accessed Wells’ DAVID information in 2012. When investigators asked him about it, he initially said he “could not specifically recall” accessing her information in the database on that occasion, but that if he did he didn’t do it for any “nefarious reasons,” according to the memo.

Investigators concluded that there was a “preponderance of evidence” in the file to prove that Celiberti had taken the key from Wells’ friend’s car during the incident in early 2012 and that he had sent Wells the text message about the sexually explicit video, the memo states.

They also wrote that there was no evidence showing that Celiberti had accessed Wells’ information in the database “for a legitimate business or law enforcement purpose.”

However, investigators said neither the criminal nor the Professional Responsibility Bureau investigation revealed evidence to show Celiberti had posted photos of Wells online and that the websites were “no longer operational,” the memo states.

The sexually explicit photos are gone for now, Wells said, but the episode has taken a toll on her nonetheless.

When she first discovered that somebody had posted the pictures in 2010, Wells said she was floored.

“Your whole life is basically laid bare for everybody to see,” she said in a phone interview with the Daily News on Thursday. “It’s just a very violent form of betrayal. It is ... I always call it cyber-rape. That’s what it feels like.”

She filed a criminal complaint with the Sheriff’s Office, but the person who posted the pictures was never found, Wells said. With internet crimes, it’s often tough to find anonymous posters, she said.

“If you don’t get on it right away, you know that stuff can disappear very quickly,” Wells said.

Then pictures resurfaced in 2015. Wells said she can’t say for sure if they were posted by Celiberti or her previous ex-boyfriend, but said that Celiberti had threatened to share them.

“It has to be somebody who has a motive,” Wells said. “In order to do this to somebody, you really have to have a lot of hatred in your heart.”

The experiences have changed her, she said. Wells fears every day that photos could pop up again online. Her small inner circle has gotten tighter.

“You get thick skin, and you get desensitized in a way, because you have to. You don’t have a choice,” she said. “It’s not a one-time crime. It’s a crime that happens, you know, again and again and again. So that’s something I have to live with, unfortunately.

“It kills you. It kills you inside.”

All too often, Wells said, outsiders or bystanders in cases of revenge porn put the spotlight on the victim instead of the person posting it.

“I didn’t commit a crime,” she said. “I trusted somebody, but I’m being treated as if I’m a criminal.”