Ex-Arcola cop pleads guilty to kidnapping, but not sex assault

A former Arcola police officer pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping a 26-year-old Pasadena woman he pulled over in 2019 and allegedly sexually assaulted.

Hector Aaron Ruiz admitted to stopping the woman around 2 a.m. Nov. 16 and making her follow him in her vehicle to a subdivision in Fort Bend County, according to court documents.

In court, the woman testified to feeling “helpless” as Ruiz then entered the passenger side of her vehicle.

She said he laid his gun holster belt in between them, and unzipped his pants before allegedly assaulting her.

Ruiz pleaded guilty to willfully depriving the victim of her constitutional rights.

Defense attorney Nicole DeBorde said Ruiz was “not found guilty of sexual assault.”

“He did not plead guilty to any sexual assault,” DeBorde said.

The guilty plea comes eight months after a separate trial in which a jury found Ruiz guilty of obstructing, destroying and altering records during a separate traffic stop the same year.

In that case, a Fort Bend woman alleged that the patrolman raped her in her home — an accusation that Ruiz was found not guilty of by a jury.

In the latest case, the woman testified that Ruiz’s actions resulted in her being diagnosed with anxiety, acute PTSD and insomnia.

During the crime, the woman testified, she was “in panic survival mode.”

“I don’t like getting in a car or going nowhere,” the woman told the jury.

Ruiz’s defense attorneys, DeBorde and Javier Martinez, tried to discredit the woman during the trial.

The attorneys also called character and expert witnesses in the former police officer’s defense.