Man charged with impersonating officers
By Jack Stephens
Published in News on February 12, 2004 2:02 PM
A Charlotte man was arrested Wednesday and charged with impersonating a Goldsboro police detective and flimflamming a couple out of $4,000.
Charles Henry Arms, 63, also was charged with second-degree kidnapping, breaking and entering and larceny. He was accused of entering a home Aug. 5 on Argo Street and saying he was a detective.
Investigator Chad Calloway said Arms then told the residents that he had been watching the house and said they had been allowing bank robbers to stay there. Arms then asked the residents for their money so that he could check the serial numbers, the detective said. When the couple gave Arms their money, the suspect then fled.
Arms had been arrested by Wilson police and charged with 12 similar offenses, including five counts of impersonating a police officer. He was placed in the Wilson County Jail in lieu of a $500,000 secured bond.
His bond on the Goldsboro charges was set at an additional $60,000.
Arms is being investigated by other law-enforcement agencies in the state, including those in Warsaw, Kinston and Rocky Mount.
Calloway said the Federal Bureau of Investigation also may be joining the investigation because Arms may have said he was a FBI agent.
Investigators were tipped to Arms after a resident in Warsaw heard news reports about the case and wrote down the license number of a suspicious car, a Wilson police investigator said.
Arms left prison in 2002 after serving an 11-year sentence for one count each of impersonating a police officer and first-degree burglary and two counts each of breaking and entering and larceny.