An Osceola County Sheriff’s deputy kept his eyes cast downward Wednesday as he walked out of the Osceola County Jail, ignoring reporters who peppered him with questions about his arrest related to alleged unnecessary force while on the job.
Joseph Billittier, 29, left the jail about two hours after a judge granted him an $11,000 bond for charges of battery on a person 65 years or older, official misconduct, perjury in an official proceeding, and falsifying a public or court record.
Billittier is accused of using unnecessary physical force while arresting a 67-year-old woman during the course of DUI investigation last month.
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said that on September 26, 2026, Deputy Billittier arrested the woman for two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence, threatening death/harm to a law enforcement officer, DUI, refusal to submit for DUI testing, and criminal mischief.
A supervisor who later reviewed the arrest found “discrepancies” between Billittier’s body-camera footage and the arrest report, according to Billittier’s affidavit.
“It was really disturbing to [the supervisor],” Osceola County Sheriff Christopher Blackmon said Wednesday, addressing reports following an unrelated press conference. “He got with his chain of command and they watched it.”
The incident, which was referred to the office’s internal affairs division, appeared to show Billittier “forcibly” pushing the woman into the back of the patrol car following her arrest, according to investigators.
According to the report Billittier filed, the woman “lifted both of her feet upward and thrust them forward multiple times.”
He wrote that the bottom of her feet struck him in his arms and legs, prompting Billittier to determine that she had battered him and resisted arrest.
The body-camera footage, however, does not show the woman doing what Billittier wrote in his report, according to investigators.
The woman apparently told Billittier she had broken her clavicle earlier in the year, pointing out that her left arm was in a sling.
The affidavit supporting Billittier’s arrest also detailed Billittier’s handling of the woman once they arrive at a hospital.
“Deputy Billittier gets her to a hospital and then places her on the bed and drags her up the bed,” the affidavit stated. “[Name redacted] can be heard whimpering and crying out in pain. He removes the handcuffs and handcuffs her right arm to the bed; he then handcuffs the left arm in the sling to the other side of the bed.”
The woman later told a detective investigating Billittier that she spent three days in jail because of the charges. She recalled having nightmares about the incident and also said she was out of work for about a month due to back pain.
“We are held to the highest standard,” Blackmon said. “This badge comes with a lot of integrity and a lot of responsibility, and we’re not going to tarnish it and mess it up. We’re going to do right. If we have to investigate our own people, we will.”
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office relieved Billittier of his duties pending formal termination proceedings.