Arcadio Rodriguez, a former deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two female inmates, showing them pornographic videos of himself and directing them to engage in sexual activity, authorities announced Thursday.
The incidents occurred while the now 30-year-old former deputy was assigned to the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Rodriguez sexually assaulted them on multiple occasions dating back to May 2022 by touching them over their jail uniforms and showing them pornographic videos of himself while they were in their cells.
He was arrested after an investigation by his own department.
The Stanton resident, who has been on GPS monitoring since January 2025, was charged with misdemeanor sexual battery, a misdemeanor count of a detention center employee engaging in sexual activity with a confined consenting adult and misdemeanor possession of a cellphone in a correctional facility in January 2023.
“Current California law only allows prosecutors to charge a misdemeanor when a detention facility employee engages in sexual activity with a confined adult over the clothes instead of skin to skin,” the DA’s release notes. “Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has been aggressively seeking a change to state law to allow prosecutors to charge the behavior as a felony or a misdemeanor.”
In addition to the 364 days credit time served, the 30-year-old was ordered to register as a sex offender for a minimum of 10 years and was placed on a one-year formal probation.
“Inmates are completely dependent on Sheriff’s deputies and other jail staff for everything from food and medication to clothing. These women were awaiting trial and had no way of escaping a predator who literally held the keys to their captivity and ordered them to perform at his every whim,” Spitzer added. “To have a sworn deputy sheriff betray his oath of office to serve and protect by preying on vulnerable incarcerated individuals for his own sexual gratification is an embarrassment to the badge and to all the hardworking law enforcement professionals who carry out their duties lawfully each and every day.”
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