Former Bay Area officer charged over sex videos sent to group chat

PINOLE » A former police officer in the San Francisco Bay Area allegedly secretly filmed sex with two women and shared the recordings with a text message group called “The Mafia” while working for the Pinole Police Department, a newspaper reported.

Anthony L. Vasquez, 24, was charged Monday with a felony count of eavesdropping and a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, related to the alleged secret filming of one of the women identified only as Jane Doe in court records. Prosecutors allege the filming occurred in Vasquez’s Hercules home, the East Bay Times reported.

Vazquez resigned on June 28 after Contra Costa authorities started investigating him over allegedly secretly filming sex with women and sharing the videos, according to court records.

The allegations came to light in May after Vasquez’s own cousin, who was of 17 members of the text message group, tipped the police department, authorities said in an affidavit for a search warrant to Vasquez’s phone.

The department opened an internal affairs investigation and informed the district attorney’s office.

One of the women was contacted by police and said she never gave consent to Vasquez to record the videos or share them. The affidavit says investigators have not yet been able to locate the second woman.