Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Ex-Turlock cop is sentenced for sex with 17-year-old girl

By Merrill Balassone
mbalassone@modbee.com

last updated: October 10, 2008 08:49:16 AM

A judge sentenced ex-Turlock police officer Jorge Fernando Cruz to 16 months in prison Thursday for sex crimes with a 17-year-old girl who shadowed him to learn about becoming a police officer.

Cruz pleaded no contest in August to three felony counts: sodomy with a minor, oral copulation with a minor and sexual intercourse with a minor.

"This defendant was a sworn peace officer -- someone sworn to protect and to serve, not to use this position to seduce and manipulate," Deputy District Attorney Annette Rees said. "He violated that trust in the worst way."

Cruz could serve as few as eight months and will not have to register as a sex offender, because the charges did not include forcible sex and the girl was older than 14.

Cruz called to meet with the Pitman High School student, a member of the Police Explorer program, in June 2007. The girl drove him to a Modesto motel where the sex acts took place, according to court documents.

Defense attorney Paul Goyette said Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Charles Stone's sentence was too harsh.

"It's an extraordinarily heavy sentence for a single consensual act between two people," Goyette said. "We wouldn't even be having this conversation if she was a few months older."

Goyette asked the sheriff's department and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to seclude Cruz from other inmates, because Cruz helped lock up gang members as a police officer and could face retaliation.

"He'll be immediately recognized," Goyette said. "He won't be a popular guy there."

Wearing a tan button-down shirt and brown slacks, Cruz immediately was handcuffed and led away after the judge sentenced him.

Outside the courtroom, friends and family of the victim and defendant declined to comment.

In a hearing last month, Rees read a statement from the girl describing her experience with Cruz.

"He took something from me that I will never get back. He took my security, my innocence," it read.

She said she doesn't feel safe anywhere and sleeps with a gun.

"Sometimes I think it would be easier to die than to deal with what he did to me," read the statement.

Cruz wrote three sentences in his statement to the probation department.

"I regret what occurred because it destroyed my character, credibility and my family," he wrote.

Rape can't be proved

The girl claimed Cruz made threats against her, including that he would "kill or have somebody kill her" if she reported him, according to court documents. The victim said Cruz told her he has family who are in gangs and they have "shot and killed people."

But Rees said there was not enough evidence to prove rape.

The allegations against Cruz didn't come to light until investigators began questioning Carl Kubicek, a former Pitman High math teacher who pleaded no contest to two felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with the same 17-year-old girl. Kubicek told police in February the girl had confided to him about Cruz several months earlier.

An investigator, posing as Kubicek, spoke to Cruz by cell phone in February. During that call, Cruz admitted being at a motel with the victim and repeatedly asked him not to tell anybody, stating it would "ruin his career."

Kubicek is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

Bee staff writer Merrill Balassone can be reached at mbalassone@modbee.com or 578-2337.