Between 2009 & 2012 Michael Rhodes was a well known confidential informant for the Portage County Drug Task Force. Michael was utilized for several years under the county’s former commander Patrick Burns – whom was briefly investigated for insurance fraud. After Michael Rhodes was let go of his informant duties he continued to act like he was a member of law enforcement. Rhodes went as far as to pose as a police officer, hunting down Portage County’s most vulnerable criminals – females that are addicted to drugs and drug dealers. His favorite target was and has always been younger, pretty looking women that he could use to satisfy his sexual desires.
Rhodes did all of this under the false pretense that he was an actual police officer and even managed a page called “Portage Dirt”. Not only did Michael Rhodes impersonate localized law enforcement, but on numerous occasions he also pretended to be a member of Federal Law Enforcement. Rhodes was emboldened by another deputy in Portage County who, in a dereliction of duty, would invite Michael Rhodes out to crime scenes from time to time. This deputy was later punished for doing so. While at the crime scenes Mike would take photos for his Facebook page which only added to the perspective and overall image that he was indeed a real police officer. Except for one thing… Michael Rhodes never was and never will be a police officer.
The vast majority of the public assumed that Michael Rhodes was a member of law enforcement and with his newfound sense of power his systemic corruption manifested itself completely. Michael put his sights on individuals whom had weaknesses, ie; drug dealers, drug users, prostitutes, single mothers and first time offenders. Michael hunted down female drug addicts and would hold drug charges over their heads to manipulate them to do as he pleased. His M.O. is sexually & monetarily motivated and by pretending to be an individual in authority he has been able to use his sick & twisted tactic on countless women. In some cases, he will pretend to make an arrest after finding them with drugs, then, in exchange for their freedom, Rhodes will have the unsuspecting female perform sexual acts on him in order to “stay out of jail”. In one specific instance it has been reported that he outright raped a woman.
Mike has gotten away for far too long because the general public believed he was a cop – even after being let go as a C. I. in 2012. It should also be noted that on numerous occasions Michael Rhodes while he used his fake profession to falsely charge female addicts and sway them to do his bidding, he would also manipulate drug dealers into giving him money to keep them protected (an illusion) as well.
Rhodes picks and chooses his victims wisely and most recently has utilized a popular existing public Facebook group with 10’s of thousands of followers to do so. This specific group made him an administrator after he had contacted them and pretended to be a Federal Agent. Rhodes worked hand in hand with the owner of the page – whom was entirely unaware. Instead of trying to help his local community, Rhodes was in fact utilizing the plethora of information to his advantage which opened up a windfall of addict information and potential targets for him to manipulate at ease.
Readers Note: The page in question has been redacted from this article as Michael Rhodes has since been removed from his administrator position. The owner of the page had no clue that Michael Rhodes was impersonating a member of Federal or State Law Enforcement & thought he was being sincere in his approach to help the family and the local area.
COBRA Says: A simple inquest into the social networking account of Michael Rhodes and of the individual F.B. page in question by the “real” authorities will help retrieve his impersonating tactics and should net an immediate arrest.
Bonnie & Clyde
One of Rhodes victims – who actually played along with the role of her “cop in question”, is a woman by the name of Tonii Burns. Burns, whom has since allegedly moved from the area and gotten away from Rhodes has been contacted numerous times to provide information as to her relationship with Rhodes and the fake drug stings that she helped him set-up. She has not been cooperative with authorities in numerous such instances.
Not So Fun Fact: Tonii Lee was used by Michael Rhodes precisely in this manner: He used to send her into dealers homes and go through stuff and find their drugs & money. Then Rhodes would come in and act like a cop and proceed to shake them down further.
Are You A Victim?
Have you been a victim of Michael Rhodes (or any other individual impersonating law enforcement)? If so, utilize the plethora of methods listed below to get into contact with us. You’re story will be shared behind the scenes with authorities or published online in a stand-alone article (if you so deem it). Either way, your information will be kept 100% anonymous from the public eye.
- Tip Line: 330-915-7483
- Email: scum@scumbagged.com
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The Bottom Line
SCUMBAGGED Opinion: The fact that Michael was secretly manning a social media page, Portage Dirt, to find his potential victims and then going out into the community and posing as a police officer for sex and money is an abomination. He needs to be jailed, women need to come forward and justice needs to be served.
This man has been doing this since at least 2004. I met him under the pretense that he was an undercover police. Until he chased me in my vehicle with his vehicle that was a regular car with no cop lights or other markings of a police. His kids go to my kids school. He walks with his gun exposed and also has a wife and kids. He has been seen in kent ohio last week driving a black chevy caprice(undercover car) with tinted windows. He is dangerous and should be arrested asap.
Lol you dumb bitch
I sure hope your not who I think you are…
It’s been going on since 1995 for sure. I thought he was just a nark for portage county, but he has seduced my x wife and stolen from friends by manipulating everyone he has ever known. And his family supports him. He’s tricked me several times I’m my adolescences. Haven’t seen him in 29 yrs. but he hasn’t changed. Sick minded
Yeah I have met him a few times myself….In my opinion which is only my opinion he is a piece of shit!! He does pray on females….Known people who was trying to het there life together…..Mike was there with one phone call to give this girl drugs….which I later got charged with because he snuck them to her!!! So got pulled over they asked to search the car…yeah go ahead….next thing I know there coming back to the cop car with 4 different types of prescription drugs wich were all felony drugs…all from that good guy Rhodes!! Just saying I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire!!! Fucking maggot, scum,coward!!
All true, every single bit of this is true. Lived next door to Michelle, or Tonii as you call her here. What a horrific nightmare that was.
We’ve heard about the rumors in the community for a decade or more with this guy we all knew he was an undercover it wasn’t a secret and neither was him choosing and picking favorites and how to play his roll.
BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Weird- no one is looking into his friends.
YYYEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally the cat is out of the bag, now for the full corruption to come…
This dude is running the Portage County Heroin Dealers Exposed page and has been for a long long time!
Fairly sure we all saw this coming!
Wow!
i remember hwen he would come and extortion tactic my nigga for about half a year we all knew he wasnt a cop but knew what would happen if we didnt pay shit was fucked up
Hey look the crooked confidential informant, hired by the crooked police, to keep robbing the crooked dealer. What a world.
Yep went to school with him he was always a sicko heard about some of this pretty easy to believe the rest hope they lock him up for good!
Toni Burns was just picked up on a warrant.
Yup i was in there with her …now i know why everyone kept alling her a snitch
I think it’s all very funny when I hear someone say I’m a snitch. Even in this article it reads very clearly that I do not corporate with the authorities…. it’s not like whoever wrote this wouldn’t of put me on front street if I had ” snitched” . People just like to be a part of something that makes them feel important, they like to add more to a story just to see thier name on something. I would actually be embarrassed to sound ass uneducated and desperate as the ones involved in this extremely animated article and or comments. I hate to even bring up my past, however my record speaks for its self….I have been to prison 3 times…and I understand snitches go to prison also however snitches also get many chances on probation first, snitches don’t stay in jail they are the ones that come in and out numerous times while never have been released on P.R. If I ever had a bond that was affordable I Def paid it….1500 dollars and 350.00 dollars were the only times I got out of jail within a couple days of being put there. The difference between myself and the people on this page is that I’m not making it up, I’m not being vindictive and trying to ruin anyone’s life or hurt anyone’s family, sadly that is exactly what this article did..hurt innocent people , family members that never deserved to be brought into the garbage printed on this page. No matter what you might think of me I’m still a mother, daughter and sister to amazing people that have never made poor choices like I have and or ever had anyone ask them or show them such trash…they never deserved to have to hear something as disgusting as the lies printed in this article. Obviously being family of an addict they have been through enough hurt and embarrassments. Now they have to add to it because someone with a grudge or even just some loser that gets a sense of importance or an adult that still plays paybacks like we did as children in school concoct this article thinking they are going to “show us” and or “teach us a lesson” by making themselves look trashy , jealous or just a sad adult that is hiding behind a computer making things up about our lives rather then finding one of thier own. It makes me wonder what they are teaching thier children, do they want to teach thier children to stay in the middle of gossip, worry about other people’s lives instead of thier own or to just be angry thier whole lives because they don’t look like someone else, have the friendship that someone else has or who just can’t be happy like someone else so they try to bring pain to the person they are Obviously infatuated with….smh I feel more sorry for thier children then children of an addict. At least my children knew I was sick and made the best decisions I could to give them a better life then I could offer at the time. I still instilled into then that being mean or making up stories about anything that could hurt others will eventually come back around and at the end of the day will make them have no friends and or only cause people to say mean things behind thier back and the difference in what they do compared to what happens to them after is that the people talking about them will have proof of what they are saying about the way you have acted versus the rumor they spread in the first place… the truth will always come out and the people you make thi gs up about will continue to live thier lives and be happy and usualnever even pay attention to the garbage being talked about for the moment. So now I can point out that my record is factual and can be proven where as nothing in this article can be proved.. sad pathetic individuals that have nothing better to do or anyone to do it with put thier opinions in situations and add to it so they can get a little attention. Me record which can be pulled up on portage county clerk of courts show you that I have never been offered probation….I never have been offered treatment and was deemed unprobational before I had ever been on probation, don’t sound like that would be what they offered me to snitch, actually the opposite . Straight to prison is what I was rewarded for not telling, not giving them what they wanted and holding my head up and taking the punishment for my choices… This is not anyone’s opinion … The best one I ever heard was that I was a snitch because the “cops” all talked to me in jail and maybe would be more likely to let me bend the rules versus someone else…. cops aren’t dumb actually..they don’t like or respect snitches either and will tell you they dont.. they use people up and still in the end they go to prison lol…however they talk to me and actually respect me because they know more then anyone I don’t talk. Cops know that if you would tell on your fellow criminal that you wouldn’t think twice to tell on them if asked… so I’m done with my rant. Weigh the facts and make an educated choice of your own. Let me add that all these people adding comments behind an alias are the same ones in our faces asking for favors or pretending to be our best friends. They same ones going to Mike asking for his help or trying to tell on others to him because they would think it would earn them brownie points or get something out of him. It was never the other way around, he never approached dope boys with the ultimatum of paying him and being free or not and going to jail….Mike has never claimed to be a cop in front of me , only the opposite. More important then anything else this man has never been disrespectful to ANY female when I have been around, the funniest part of this lie is that these girls were the same ones trying to call him and flirt and get close to him because of the image they developed all on thier own of his occupation. Then when the illusion was gone because he would turn them down repeatedly they were embarrassed and hurt, desperate for revenge lol and this kind of garbage I how they attempt to do it. Smh. Something I found funny in this article was the part that said Mike used me to go in the dope Boys house and find all the drugs money or weapons only for him to go inside and take it. If anyone who reads this knows me then they know never have I ever needed Mike to do something like this, something I’m not proud of but again the truth is that I wouldn’t go and check out something for someone else to go get, I would take it myself and then turn around and tell whomever that it was Mr who did it and there wasn’t anything they could do about it… it’s embarrassing when a female that is 5’3 gets over on a man or a group that have an image of being tough.. so they make a different scenario and say I had help or even sent him in to do it….. smh… really? That sounds like a scene in a movie. I’m not a year sober, completed treatment and actually flourished in the Parc place sober living. It’s sad to think that they court system could of helped me years ago if they would of given me the chance to get better like they did this time, the only time and the time I committed crimes that actually deserved prison. I grateful to be given my life back, to be freed from my addiction. I have a job now and have my family and children back in my life. I send them presents and they can call me when they need something and I will get it for them. I do things and go places and people actual listen to what I have to say and ask for my advice. I wasn’t much of a person at all in my addiction, however if asked I would never lie about the scum bag things I’ve done and I don’t mind telling my story. Today I’m proud of my journey, I’m proud to be alive still and it wasn’t too late for me to turn things around. I can defend myself today to things like this because I have overcome my addiction, something that most say can not. If my story helps anyone then it’s worth telling if I can tell the years I wasted or the thi gs I’ve done to stay in my addiction and show them they aren’t too far gone or have done too many horrible things then my story is worth telling. And I can promise you with no hesitations thar the things in this article are not in my story,, lol… I probably shouldn’t of even Commented, let it go and move on with my life. I just feel I have the right to show people who I am today and offer the truth to who I was before. Be smart and look at the FACTS, to what makes sense versus what sounds like a teenager who has been rejected or someone who hates people whom have something they want and don’t have…. I’m not trying to tell stories about the individuals who said anything about me, I’m just offering the truth. I feel sorry for the people and the ones like them who wrote anything on this story…I wish them freedom from thier anger , jealousy and misery. I hope they learn to let go and focus on the amazing things in life like family and freedom and choices ….. I forgive all who have talked bad about me and pray they heal from the hatred that has overcame the person they used to be or the person imprisoned by the sadness and misery they live in …. thanks!!! (Tonii) Michelle Burns
He has gotten even more rotten over the past year. He got caught living a double life. He was taking his kids over to his secret girlfriends house who he was leaving his kids in the house to play with her kids while they did drugs and had sex.
He has now been escorted out of his home for domestic violence towards his wife who he has a hold on by fear.
We have been friends with this family for years and I have always known he is a scumbag but it has just gotten out of hand. He spends his days at the bars leaving his children unattended while his wife works. He had a heart attack and continues to drink and do drugs and stay with his shady ways. This guy will never change and I feel bad for his family because they suffer due to his selfishness. I have seen him in public you can tell he is strung out and when I pass him in town he is always with the same dark haired girl who is most likely his other girlfriend. What a scumbag!!
Hey I got a couple questions for you if you dont mind…pertaining to his mistress
If the information in this article is true, why has this man not been arrested? Impersonating a law enforcement officer is a felony (if I’m correct). In addition to the many crimes he’s been accused of here. Is there no evidence?
I’m glad you have used your brain to realize something wasn’t checking out with this story. Portage county will arrest you for jaywalking they would love to arrest him for these things if they were true. If this was all true why aren’t these females pressing charges or want justice for being degraded like they say happened? A scorned woman is the most dangerous person to piss off……just saying
Mike Rhodes is still a slime ball he tried to con my sister into sexual favors or he would eat her out for her addiction. I know his ex wife pretty well and I didn’t want to burden her with this info so I figured I would put it online. This man doesn’t care about anyone but himself he constantly does the same thing over and over with no one holding him accountable. How are you going to tell a woman to let you in her house and to suck his d**k or he is going to get you arrested for drugs. My sister is fresh out of rehab doing great and he prays on the weak. Not only that when she refused he then tried to convince her to let him go get her something to make her feel better. Like man she just got out of rehab and your using her addiction to manipulate her into sexual favors. He is a scum bag and I hope this catches up with him. BTW my sister still said no and he stormed off probably to victimize another person.
Update just checked online and he has been charged with 3 counts of child endangerment and one count of domestic violence!! He tried to run his wife and kids off the road and hurt them. Looks like the cops saw it all happen and he is scheduled to be in court this fall. Maybe they will finally put him away!!