Woman poses as ICE agent to kidnap ex-boyfriend’s wife at work, Florida cops say

A woman wearing a shirt that said “ICE” pretended to be an immigration officer to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife, Florida authorities said.

The Bay County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of 52-year-old Latrance Battle on April 21.

Battle showed up to the wife’s workplace at a hotel chain in the Florida Panhandle on April 10, and the worker asked if Battle needed a room, deputies wrote in an arrest affidavit.

Battle told the worker she was there to “pick her up,” investigators said.

That’s when Battle unzipped the jacket she was wearing to reveal a shirt that had ICE printed on the front, the woman recounted to deputies.

Battle presented a business card appearing to show she worked for a sheriff’s office, after which the woman contacted her boss and went with Battle, believing she was a real agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, deputies said.

The woman said she got in the car willingly because “she was scared and did not want to get in more trouble,” and Battle said they were going to the sheriff’s office, according to investigators.

The woman “is in the process of becoming a legal United States resident,” deputies wrote in a news release.

As Battle drove, she spoke into a hand-held radio, furthering the woman’s belief that Battle was a real ICE agent, the woman said.

But on the ride, the kidnapped woman tried to call her husband and her lawyer but told investigators that Battle “snatched” the phone from her hand, deputies wrote.

She said Battle told her she could make a call at the sheriff’s office, investigators said.

The kidnapped woman said she became suspicious when Battle passed by the sheriff’s office and was making comments about how the woman “now has to suffer the consequences of her husband’s actions,” according to the affidavit.

Battle took the woman to an apartment complex where she said additional ICE agents would be waiting, investigators reported. Battle went into one unit and was “making a lot of noise,” then the kidnapped woman saw her chance and walked to a neighboring apartment, where she knocked on the window and asked to use his phone, she told deputies.

The woman hid herself behind the neighbor’s car to make the phone call, she told deputies. So when Battle came out of her apartment, she saw the neighbor and asked him whether he had seen a woman running, the neighbor told deputies.

Battle told the neighbor she took the woman’s phone because “she knows what she did,” investigators said.

The neighbor let the kidnapped woman into his apartment until law enforcement arrived, and in the meantime she called her husband and described the fake ICE agent, she told deputies.

The husband said that sounded like his ex-girlfriend, who had shown up at his work two years earlier and “attacked him,” prompting him to file a restraining order against her, according to the report.

The sheriff’s office shared body camera footage of deputies pulling over Battle’s vehicle and arresting her.

She was charged with kidnapping in commission of a felony, robbery by sudden snatching, impersonating a law enforcement officer in the commission of a felony and felony violation of probation.

Bay County includes the Panama City metropolitan area.

This story was originally published April 21, 2025 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Woman poses as ICE agent to kidnap ex-boyfriend’s wife at work, Florida cops say."