How wife’s suspicions led to sex-crimes charges against former cop

The case against former Valley Center police Sgt. Thomas Delgado began with suspicion from his wife about all the time he was using to text teenage girls, says a court document released Monday.

On Nov. 11, she contacted a sheriff’s lieutenant and said “there have been repeated issues with Delgado constantly texting 14-17 year old girls and keeping his phone secured so she wouldn’t be able to see the contents,” says an affidavit that lays out the investigation. The lieutenant received the names of “four girls Delgado had been in frequent contact with,” the affidavit said.

The document provides the basis for recent criminal charges against Delgado, 49, who resigned the day he was arrested in December. He is facing seven charges: sexual exploitation of a child, sexual battery, attempted sexual battery, official misconduct and three counts of harassment by telecommunications device. The charges list four victims by their initials. The alleged crimes occurred from February 2015 to December 2016. All of the charges involve incidents after Valley Center hired Delgado in April 2014. Before that, he worked on patrol and in the offender registration unit for the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office.

During a Nov. 22 interview with a sheriff’s detective, Delgado’s wife said that over the past couple of years, he “seems to develop very close relationships with girls ages 14 to 17,” the affidavit said. She said he “guards his phone ‘with his life.’ ”

The wife provided the names of four girls he had frequently texted or called in the past couple of years, the affidavit said.

She told the detective she “believes he gets their information from responding to 911 calls involving girls.”

Delgado’s cellphone records revealed that he sent more than 6,500 texts to one girl, more than 1,200 to a second, five texts to a third and 356 texts to a fourth. The texts were sent in a three-and-a-half-month period, from Aug. 7, 2016, to Nov. 22, 2016, the document said.

And there were hundreds of phone calls.

Delgado’s wife filed for divorce in late November.

One teen said Delgado told her “he knew how she could make $500 but she thought he was just teasing,” the affidavit said. “When asked what she thought Delgado was talking about, (she) indicated sex with him.”

According to the affidavit, he praised her laugh, personality and intelligence but also commented on her body.

This past December, a second teen told the detective that she met Delgado when he was a Valley Center police officer while she was out after curfew. Instead of taking her to a juvenile facility, he gave her his cellphone number and let her go home “without any repercussions to her.” She thought she was 15 or 16 when that happened, the document said.

Later, Delgado gave her money for food or gasoline and bought her expensive perfume.

She never got the perfume – because Delgado’s wife found it, the affidavit said.

Delgado met with the girl while he was on duty and in full uniform in his patrol car, it said.

He had her ride with him in the patrol car “numerous times,” including down dirt roads looking for a homicide victim this past November.

He told her he loved her, the affidavit stated. He directed her to delete her text messages “because he could get into trouble.”

The police sergeant began looking through her phone and found a video of her performing a sex act. He watched it and “demanded she send him the video,” it said. “He finally pressured her into sending it to him.” He also demanded that she send him pictures of her in lingerie or partly nude, then ordered her to delete them from her phone.

She said he “was always trying to kiss her when they were alone” – once when she was 17 and with him late at night while he was on duty and in uniform in his patrol car. He stopped his patrol car in the middle of a road and rubbed her breast through her clothing, it said.

She “told Delgado to stop and he did but he was upset with her.”

The teen told the detective that Delgado “always told her not to tell anyone.”

She feared telling anyone about the alleged incidents because she was afraid “Delgado would get her in trouble for the pictures.”

In another interview, Delgado’s wife told the detective that one to two years earlier, “she had logged onto the computer to do some work and found a search history full of ‘teen porn’ websites.”

Sheriff’s officers arrested Delgado on Dec. 8.

On Dec. 12, the detective interviewed a woman in her 20s who had worked part time for Valley Center.

He constantly commented about her body, the affidavit said. She said he often put his hand on the seat of the patrol car “to try to get her to sit on it so he could touch her butt.”

When he offered to have sex with her, she ignored it or “re-directed the conversation by asking a work related question,” the affidavit said.

In January, the detective interviewed a teen who said that when she was about 15, in 2015, she had to call 911 because of a disturbance at a Valley Center home. Delgado was the officer who responded. As he was leaving, she joked that he should bring her a Dr Pepper, and he came back with one.

Then, a few days later, she said, Delgado knocked on her door and gave her a 12-pack of the soft drink. And that made her feel “kind of ‘weird,’ ” the document said.

Later, she said, he asked whether her mother was home and invited her to lunch, which made her feel uncomfortable. Her contact with Delgado lasted only a few weeks because she and her family moved from Valley Center.

The affidavit describes pictures that one of the teens sent to Delgado in June 2016 of her in her underwear. One of Delgado’s text replies: “That’s what I’m talkin’ bout!!!!”

Later, in October, it says, he asked her to send him a picture “with nothing on.”

After she sent two images, including a close-up, he allegedly replied, “I LOVE it!!!! (emojis).”

She was 17.

This story was originally published June 12, 2017 at 7:08 PM with the headline "How wife’s suspicions led to sex-crimes charges against former cop."