Myrtle Beach area man flashing police badge avoided impersonation charge. Why?
Reports of a civilian man flashing a police badge on at least two separate, recent occasions along the Grand Strand weren’t enough to lead to charges of impersonating an officer.
Husband and wife Ray and Ginger Maston, of Murrells Inlet, told The Sun News they each had encounters with the same man driving erratically in a distinctive Ford Mustang before displaying a badge.
An Horry County Police incident report describing the more recent encounter, involving Ray Maston on Tuesday morning, states that police were called to Maddington Place Drive in the Surfside Beach area in reference to a reported road rage case.
The suspect, whose name is redacted, told police he noticed someone following him to his residence and went to confront him with a firearm concealed in his shorts — which he never pointed — and admitted to flashing his badge at the same time. No charges were filed.
Attempts to reach the alleged suspect were unsuccessful.
Ray Maston told police he was following the car to get a picture of the license plate after recognizing it as the same car driven by a man who weeks earlier had tried to run his wife off the road before flashing a badge at her, according to the incident report.
Ginger Maston told The Sun News she was driving the morning of July 28 down Highway 17 South in Georgetown County when she first noticed a man driving aggressively behind her in a black Mustang. He proceeded to tailgate her, pass her and brake tap her numerous times before she decided to call police dispatch to report the erratic driving, she said.
While she was on the phone with a dispatcher, he pulled beside her and displayed a police badge, so she took a picture with her phone and reported his license plate number, Ginger Maston said. The dispatcher told her, based on the license plate, he wasn’t an officer with the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, and they’d attempt to make contact with the driver, she said.
She didn’t think much of the encounter after that, she said, but told her husband and showed him the pictures she took.
Ray Maston told The Sun News he was leaving a residential neighborhood Tuesday morning in his landscaping work truck when the same black Mustang passed him. He quickly recognized it was the same car due to distinctive stickers and “California Special” written in red on the back and side of the vehicle, he said.
He called the non-emergency police line while following the car for about a half mile before parking on the side of a main road across from the apartment complex parking lot where the driver of the Mustang parked, Ray Maston said. While he was still on the phone with the dispatcher, the driver came toward him yelling and cursing at him to leave, lifting his shirt to show he had a gun and flashing a police badge, he said.
The driver went into the apartment complex when Maston told him he was on the phone with police, he added.
Ray Maston said police told him the man was a former New York police officer and they were going to seek a warrant to charge him with impersonating an officer, but they later told him a judge declined to approve any criminal charges related to the incident.
Mikayla Moskov, an Horry County Police spokeswoman, confirmed the case was presented to a judge, and a judge determined the state statutes and incident don’t support any charges..
The Mastons are incredulous as to why the driver’s admission of flashing a badge wasn’t enough to warrant the impersonation charges and are concerned it will just encourage his behavior to continue, they told The Sun News.
“What are the chances the only two times this guy has done this were to a husband and wife on different days in different locations?,” Ginger Maston asked, rhetorically. “It’s very disturbing, and now he thinks he can just get away with it.”
South Carolina law states that it is unlawful for anyone other than an authorized law enforcement officer to represent themselves as a law enforcement officer and, “acting upon such representation, to arrest or detain any person, search any building or automobile or in any way impersonate a law enforcement officer or act in accordance with the authority commonly given to such officers.”
Moskov noted that the act of flashing a badge does not constitute impersonation according to the verbiage of the statute and determination of the judge.
HCPD did recently arrest and charge Michael Anthony Cautillo, of Myrtle Beach, with impersonating an officer. Cautillo unlawfully identified himself as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming he was sent from the Boston FBI Office to investigate sex trafficking in the Myrtle Beach area, according to his arrest warrant.
Cautillo was attempting to solicit resident information from a leasing office, provided a business card with an FBI logo and operated his vehicle with flashing blue lights, the warrant states.
This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 11:26 AM.
