KATY – Last Monday, 17-year-old Hailey Arriaga was driving home with her boyfriend, Mike Allen, 18, who was asleep in the front passenger seat. As she got close to her house in Katy, she noticed a car riding her bumper.
The car followed them.
“I pulled into the driveway and he stopped right here in front of my house,” Arriaga said. “I didn’t want to get out of the car yet because I didn’t know who he was.”
When she did get out of her car on the 19400 block of Dry Canyon Court, she said the driver that had been following her flashed a police badge and asked if she knew how fast she was driving.
For a minute, she said she thought the driver was a genuine police officer. But then, Allen, who had been reclined back in the front seat, got out of the car and said the man with the badge seemed surprised.
“He didn’t know I was in the car when I got out of the car he kind of got shook up. I guess he thought she was by herself.” Allen said.
Then, they said they both noticed the badge was from the New York Police Department.
“We were like ’you’re a fake cop. You can go. Just drive away,’” Arriaga said.
Police later identified the man with the badge as Vyacheslav Shevchenko, 42, who lives about a mile from Arriaga’s house.
When KPRC 2 contacted Shevchenko for an interview on Thursday, he declined and said he wanted to talk with his attorney first.
“After I get a lawyer and after I talk to the lawyer, I’ll be more than happy to talk to you,” he said.
According to court records, Shevchenko has been arrested in the past for impersonating a peace officer. In this most recent case, he has been charged with impersonating a public servant, a third-degree felony that carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison if he’s convicted.