Former SAPD Officer Erik Rodriguez Gets Six Months of Probation and Surrenders His Police License as a Five-Year Case Ends
Court records show the 14-year veteran pleaded guilty October 22 to a misdemeanor distribution of confidential information, reduced from second-degree bribery; a second charge was dropped the same day for insufficient evidence.
A former San Antonio Police Department officer was sentenced to six months of probation last month for a case tied up in court since 2021 over a dispute involving cellphone evidence, KSAT reported in a story read in full by the desk this cycle. Court records show Erik Rodriguez, a former 14-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department, accepted a guilty plea deal on October 22 reducing his charge of second-degree bribery to a misdemeanor distribution of confidential information. Records also show his possession of child sex abuse material charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence the same day. Rodriguez, who gave up his police license as part of the plea deal, will pay a $250 fine and spend six months under probation.
Rodriguez, 45, was arrested in January 2021 and later indicted on charges including bribery and possession of child sex abuse material; he pleaded not guilty. Investigators determined he had accepted money in exchange for providing information to the suspect in a domestic violence case, and his personal cell phone was seized; that phone allegedly held a video described by the Bexar County District Attorney's Office, according to the reporting.
The evidence fight defined the case. Rodriguez's attorneys filed a motion to suppress evidence that may have been obtained with an illegal search warrant — the warrant for the phone was signed by a magistrate judge who did not have the authority to sign it, a prosecutor argued a second warrant was signed by the proper judge before the phone was searched, and a judge ruled the seizure of the phone was still illegal. In October 2022 the search warrants connected to the arrest were tossed after a state district judge ruled the evidence was obtained improperly. The former officer later asked the Supreme Court to review a ruling that allowed prosecutors to use evidence obtained from his cellphone, in August of this year, but the case never moved forward to the Supreme Court, and the October plea closed the five-year case.
