An officer with the San Antonio Police Department has been indicted by a grand jury on 24 counts of possessing child pornography, according to online court records.
Officer Albert Sanchez, a 16-year veteran of SAPD, was indicted Wednesday after being arrested in January.
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According to discipline records obtained by KSAT Investigates, he was initially charged with possessing child pornography and later admitted to performing sex acts on children as young as three years old.
Sanchez, 39, was placed on temporary suspension without pay on Jan. 12, a day after his arrest on the felony charge, records show.
According to internal affairs paperwork and search warrant affidavits, from the city of San Antonio, SAPD became aware of issues with Sanchez on Jan. 5, when a woman he was in a relationship with came forward.
She said Sanchez admitted that he “slept with” minors as recently as Christmas.
The woman, who has not been identified due to the nature of her allegations, told investigators she began seeing Sanchez after he was on leave for an on-duty shooting last year.
The woman showed investigators a text message conversation she had with Sanchez in which he admitted to performing sex acts on minors of varying ages, records show.
KSAT is not including the explicit details from those conversations, due to their sensitive nature.
As SAPD investigators seized Sanchez’s cellphones in early January, he “admitted to communicating about engaging in sexual conduct with minors but stated it was only a fantasy,” a search warrant return states.
A forensic download of Sanchez’s cellphone communications revealed that he described the sex acts in conversations on Nov. 14, Dec. 5 and Dec. 31 and stated he still had pictures from the incidents and “might have recordings,” records show.
A second witness told SAPD that Sanchez, 38, was engaging in “sexting” conversations on multiple cell phones and that when confronted, claimed he was attempting to expose a possible online pedophile, records show.
Investigators searched Sanchez’s work history and could not find an assignment that would require him to use the sexual vocabulary used in his written cellphone conversations, according to records.
Sanchez was arrested days later for possession of child pornography after investigators found multiple explicit pictures of minors on his cellphone, records show.
An attorney for Sanchez did not respond to a text message seeking comment for this story.
Sanchez is also under investigation for aggravated sexual assault of a child, discipline records show.
SAPD officials did not respond to multiple emails from KSAT seeking an update on the status of that case.
Sanchez was free on bond on Jan. 12 while awaiting indictment, court records show. KSAT could find no record that Sanchez has received an indefinite suspension, following his arrest.
A trial date has not yet been set.
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