Feds look at ex-deputy, deported boyfriend
An Oklahoma County deputy sheriff has been fired after federal agents discovered she was living with a man who had been deported multiple times to Mexico.
Gloria Gomez was suspended with pay June 15 after agents arrested her boyfriend as he left her home in Oklahoma City, records show.
The patrol deputy was fired June 20. She has not been arrested.
She is being investigated “for various offenses, including concealing and harboring
an illegal alien,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent reported in a court affidavit.
Gomez, 29, admitted in an interview that she knew Jesus Salvador Vasquez-Palacios had been deported, the special agent wrote. She told agents he “was living at her residence and firearms would also be found inside.”
“Gomez has concealed, shielded from detection and harbored Vasquez by, among other efforts, housing him in her residence, searching law enforcement databases for derogatory information on his vehicle and failing to report his illegal re-entry to the authorities,” Special Agent Ryan C. Browning wrote.
Sheriff P.D. Taylor said Gomez was terminated for policy violations. He described her as well liked and said her involvement with Vasquez was shocking and surprising.
She had worked at the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade, starting off doing clerical work. She had been a deputy since 2010. She had been doing patrols since 2014.
She searched a national law enforcement database March 14 for any “red flags” on the tag of a pickup Vasquez was buying, the investigation found. A co-worker had searched the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) March 9 for any records on the tag.
“We’re still looking into that deal,” the sheriff said of the NCIC check by another deputy. “She might have asked him to do it and he didn’t think anything about it . ... I don’t think he had any reason to doubt that it wasn’t a legit deal.”
Reached by phone Wednesday, Gomez declined to comment.
Vasquez was last deported after he was caught in Oklahoma City on Nov. 2, 2016. Customs officers found a small amount of marijuana in the kitchen of his residence and 1,012 rifle bullets in a package under the front seat of his van, records show.
Investigators searched his phone after that 2016 arrest and found pictures of him and Gomez together, records show. They also found text messages to and from Gomez.
He was deported on Feb. 23, 2017, at a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Investigators suspect he came back into the United States across the same bridge two weeks later by using his brother’s permanent resident card.
Investigators spotted Vasquez on April 26 at Gomez’s house, in the garage, after getting a tip he was back in Oklahoma City, the special agent, Browning, reported.
On May 25, investigators followed them to a gym and to a grocery store. Investigators went into the gym undercover and saw them exercising together. An investigator also went into the grocery store undercover and saw them shopping together.
The investigation of Gomez came to light because the Department of Homeland Security asked a federal magistrate judge on June 22 for permission to search her seized iPhone.