Ex-police officer from Houston area gets 20 years in rape of woman while on duty

A former officer for the Arcola Police Department has been sentenced to prison after being convicted of obstruction of justice and violation of civil rights, US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Alamdar S. Hamdani announced in a news release Monday.

Hector Aaron Ruiz, 29, pleaded guilty Jan. 19. Arcola is around 25 miles southeast of Houston.

US District Judge Charles Eskridge sentenced Ruiz to a total of 20 years in federal prison, which will be immediately followed by five years of supervised release.

On Nov. 16, 2019, Ruiz was on duty at night when he pulled over a 23-year-old woman to drive a traffic stop, the news release said. Authorities said he told her to “convince” him not to take her to jail, took her driver’s license and ordered her to follow him.

She tried to drive off, but he pulled her over again and repeated his order.

He then drove her to a neighborhood that was under construction and forced her to drink alcohol, then coerced her to have sex with him, the news release said.

That same day, the victim came forward and identified Ruiz as her rapist.

The investigation found Ruiz had disabled his body microphone and the active recording system in his police cruiser, the news release said.

Investigators found a text message the woman sent to a friend while Ruiz was following him. In it, she said she thought she was going to die

Forensic analysis confirmed Ruiz was her rapist, the news release said.

“Hector Ruiz mistakenly believed he was protected by his uniform and badge and operated as a calculating predator who targeted and sexually assaulted his victim during a traffic stop,” FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams said in the news release. “We thank the courageous woman who bravely confronted Mr. Ruiz in court to ensure he faced justice for his crime against her. As law enforcement officers, there’s nothing we despise more than those who disgrace the badge, betray the oath to protect our community and violate the public’s trust.”

Ruiz will remain in custody pending transfer to a US Bureau of Prisons facility, which will be determined later.

“Ruiz was not only a predator but a predator with a badge,” Hamdani said in the news release. “During a traffic stop, he raped a young woman he was sworn to serve and to protect, violently breaking a fundamental promise law enforcement makes with any community. The US Attorney’s Office is relentless in its pursuit to bring to justice officers who betray their uniform and oaths, committing heinous acts against members of our community. Today’s sentence is the fruit of that pursuit.”

Court records show he initially was arrested in November 2019 by the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office and charged with the second-degree felony of sexual assault.

According to a news release from Nov. 16, 2020, a Houston federal grand jury indicted Ruiz on Nov. 10, 2020, on charges that he committed aggravated sexual abuse and kidnapping while serving in his official capacity as a law enforcement officer.

He also was charged with two counts of depriving two victims of their right to bodily integrity, the news release said. He also faced charges of two counts of carrying and using a firearm in a crime of violence and falsifying dashboard camera and body microphone recordings with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.

The FBI and Texas Rangers investigated the case, which Assistant US Attorneys Sharad S. Khandelwal and Sebastian Edwards prosecuted.