Suspended Grapevine officer arrested, faces felony charge

A suspended Grapevine K-9 officer accused of stealing a case of training drugs and ingesting some was arrested, authorities said Wednesday.

Senior officer Danny Macchio, 49, of Fort Worth was booked into the Parker County Jail in Weatherford on Monday and was released on $1,500 bail a few hours later.

He is expected to be charged in Tarrant County with abuse of official capacity, misuse of goverment property from $1,500 to $20,000, Grapevine police said Wednesday. The charge is a state jail felony.

A criminal investigation as well as an internal inquiry continued Wednesday on Macchio, who has been on administrative leave from the Police Department since Oct. 24.

Macchio has been with the force for 17 years and in the K-9 unit since December 2002. He and the department’s dog, Ranger, have arrested dozens of drug suspects and have been in many K-9/drug competitions, officials said.

Macchio reported Oct. 7 to Fort Worth police that his Grapevine city-owned patrol/K-9 vehicle was broken into at his home in Fort Worth. He reported that a case of training narcotics, including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy, was stolen, along with a personal handgun.

“The drugs are used by the officer during training sessions with his K-9,” Grapevine police Sgt. Robert Eberling said in a November news release.

An internal investigation began Oct. 17, after Grapevine police suspected Macchio of mishandling the training narcotics and the theft report.

Macchio went missing Oct. 21, a day after he was required to submit a urinalysis as part of the internal investigation. A family member reported him missing.

He was found in Dumas in the Panhandle and was brought home by Grapevine police, Eberling said in the news release.

Shortly after, Macchio confessed to Grapevine police that his vehicle had not been burglarized and that he had taken the drugs and ingested some of them, authorities said.

Police said Macchio surrendered the missing case of drugs and the weapon he had reported stolen.

This report includes material from the Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published December 11, 2014 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Suspended Grapevine officer arrested, faces felony charge."