Vitar has had his fair share of encounters with the law; he was charged with assault in 2016.
He faced serious jail time after he and his two co-firefighters — Eric Carpenter and Thomas Molnar, attacked a guy in a Halloween night beat down.
According to reports, the 43-year-old and his friends approached and assaulted a 22-year-old graduate student named Samuel Chang, who was handing out candy in a gated community.
The assailants accused him of handing out "drug-laced" candies, which later turned out to be untrue.
The firefighters of Los Angeles also claimed that Chang was under the influence of PCP (a type of drug). But after thorough medical examinations, they could find no traces of the drug in his system.
On the contrary, Chang thought he smelled alcohol on at least one firefighter’s breath.
As they attacked him, one of them choked him and beat him so severely that he suffered a cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated.
Vitar was initially released on a $30,000 bail but was later charged with misdemeanor battery, which he did not contest.
As a result, the three were sued in criminal court and with damages amounting to $7.2 million.
Ultimately, Vitar received three months' probation and 90 days of community service. Further, he was suspended for 6 months without pay.
