Judge grants another continuance in former Yuma police officer’s case
A hearing Thursday for a former Yuma police officer who is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 17-yearold girl was continued by a Superior Court judge until later this year.
Superior Court Judge Roger Nelson rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 9, a move that gives Bobby Garcia’s attorney more time to resolve some remaining discovery matters.
In updating the court on the status of the case, attorney Jerry Hernandez explained that he is still in the process of collecting all of the metadata from the files on his client’s cellphone and other forms of digital media.
He has also hired an expert to examine that metadata, but they are not available until November, and without it he can’t continue preparing the case.
Additionally, Hernandez said there are still several interviews that were conducted in the case that he does not have yet, and that he and the prosecution have been working together to resolve the matter.
Upon hearing Hernandez’s explanation, and since the prosecution offered no objection, Nelson granted his request for the continuance.
Garcia, who appeared at the hearing in person, initially had three cases against him. Those cases have been dismissed and combined into a single case containing 47 total felony charges.
Garcia has been charged with 27 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, 15 counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of tampering with physical evidence.
He has also been charged with four counts of furnishing obscene material to a minor.
He remains in custody at the Yuma County jail on more than a combined $1 million cash-only bond.
In May 2019, YPD reported that it was investigating a complaint that one of its officers engaged in sexual conduct with a minor between 2017 and 2018. The officer’s identity was not released at the time.
But he was later identified by the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (AZPOST) Board during its Nov. 20, 2019 meeting.
During the AZPOST board meeting Garcia denied any personal or sexual relationship with the girl. However, information extracted from the girl’s phone contradicted statements he had made.
Phone records indicated that Garcia had allegedly been communicating with the teenager and he had even asked her to send him a video of her “twerking” and other pictures. Those same phone records also showed that the teen once had brought the officer beer at his private residence, police said.
At the time of the incident Garcia was assigned as a Neighborhood School Resource Officer (NSRO), but was not assigned to a particular school. His duties were to assist schools that did not have an SRO assigned to them.
The former officer’s cell phone was also seized under a warrant but it could not initially be unlocked by either the crime labs of the Department of Public Safety nor the FBI because Garcia refused to provide the PIN for it.
The investigation into Garcia included an extensive forensic analysis of cell phone records and various forms of digital media, and took months to complete.
Garcia was hired by the Yuma Police Department on June 15, 2015.