Jimmy Dac Ho was employed as an FAU police officer when he confessed to shooting escort Sheri Carter in the abdomen and neck on Monday, January 31. Before taking the job at FAU, Ho was fired from his post at the Broward Sheriff's Office -- over a number of previous incidents in which his temper flared when arguing with a woman.
In this case, the woman was his then-wife, Wendy Ho. Here's her account of one event, based on a sworn statement she gave to Pembroke Pines police in April 2004.
The couple was reportedly having problems with their relationship, and had not been speaking. While she was making dinner, her husband said something to her and she didn't answer. She then reached into the refrigerator to get milk, and Jimmy Ho slammed the door on her arm, keeping pressure on it "for approximately ten seconds to one minute."
"He looked at me
intently, like he meant to hurt me," Wendy Ho told the police officer. She received bruises on her left bicep. The Hos' children witnessed the incident and reported a similar version of events. Jimmy Ho told investigators that he had simply been meaning to slam the refrigerator door closed, and it happened to hit his wife on the arm.
Wendy Ho originally did not want to file a report for fear that her husband would lose his job as a BSO deputy. She did go to police the next day out of a fear that violence might increase.
That wasn't the only incident of domestic violence in the Ho household. Wendy told officers that on New Year's Eve in 2002, she was talking to her sister on the phone when her husband "put his arm up like he was going to hit her," according to the sworn statement. "She stated she went into the kid's room and he threw an exercise videotape at her." A Pembroke Pines Police sergeant responded to the house and found that no police action was necessary.
Two weeks later, Wendy Ho contacted the sergeant again, saying she had a bruise on her leg from another object that her husband had thrown at her.
These domestic disturbances were the subject of a domestic battery investigation by Pembroke Pines Police, filed in May 2004, a month after the refrigerator incident. In late September of that year, BSO Assistant Inspector General Roy Vrchota sent a memo to Sheriff Ken Jenne recommending that Ho be terminated, for violating codes of conduct with conformity to laws, and for "conduct unbecoming an employee." Jenne and Lt. Col. Tom Brennan approved the dismissal the following day.
Here's the full memo from BSO's Internal Affairs department:
Jimmy Dac Ho BSO IA Report Follow The Juice on Twitter: @TheJuiceBPB.