SAN MARCOS — Following an inmate who claimed she was a victim of sexual misconduct, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office arrested corrections officer John Duran, 45, for official oppression and tampering with a governmental record April 24.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 27 years and integrity is everything when it comes to law enforcement,” said Hays County Sheriff Anthony Hipolito during a press conference April 25. “[During my campaign for sheriff], I talked about telling you guys, the community, when we do a good job. I also talked about telling the community when we fall short and that’s why we’re here today.”
Hipolito stated that the news release sent out to the media was mere minutes after Duran was arrested, in an effort to honor transparency.
According to HCSO, a female inmate at the Hays County Jail notified a corrections lieutenant that a corrections officer was committing sexual misconduct against her.
“Anytime that we get a complaint like that, or an outcry, they’re taken very seriously, as you can imagine. An internal investigation started immediately,” said Hipolito, “I believe it started April 6 once our investigators got back to work.”
It was during this initial investigation that HCSO was notified that there would be aspects of a possible crime occurrence, so the internal administrative investigation was suspended and instead, the Hays County Criminal Investigation Division was directed to begin a criminal inquiry.
In the weeks following the alleged incident, detectives spoke with the victim and the corrections officer prior to filing arrest warrants and charges for official oppression — a Class A misdemeanor — and tampering with a governmental record — a state jail felony — against Duran.
The investigation revealed that in one of the incidents, Duran woke up the inmate after she went to bed and encouraged her to shower, “stating he wanted to watch her,” according to the arrest warrant. He then proceeded to use “his computer screen, because there’s a camera above the shower, and he essentially watched her shower,” explained the sheriff.
“To our knowledge at this point during the investigation, there’s not been any physical contact at all between the inmate — the victim — and our corrections officer,” said Hipolito, as there have been questions on the lack of sexual assault charge.
Duran has been employed with HCSO since July 2022, during which there have been no complaints against the corrections officer, said the sheriff, and he has since been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the internal investigation, which will take approximately two to three weeks.
“Whether our corrections officer encouraged or coerced or talked her into doing anything sexually, it doesn’t matter. Whether he touched her or not, he used the power of his position — the badge, the patch, the full uniform, the handcuffs — to either encourage or coerce this victim to do things sexually and very inappropriate. And I want everyone to know that if any of our employees do that, they will be held accountable to the highest standard. That is not something that will ever be tolerated here at the Hays County Sheriff’s Office,” emphasized Hipolito. “There is nothing worse than a person disgracing the badge.”
The sheriff shared that Duran was charged with the state jail felony, as when he initially applied to the position, he answered that he had not been investigated by a former employer. However, HCSO discovered that there had been three separate investigations during his time at the Texas State Department of Criminal Justice, where he was found to be involved in the trading of contraband in 2010, received a haircut from an inmate in 2014 and was actively under investigation for giving false statements when he left the department in June 2014.
In an effort to find others that may have slipped through the background check process, Hipolito shared that executive team members will be reviewing the applications of those already employed with HCSO to ensure all information is accurate.
The victim has since been released from the jail, shared Hipolito: “I have to thank her, as well. If she didn’t come forward and talk to one of our lieutenants at the jail and make that outcry, we would not know about it.”
“Just like you, I don’t want anyone like officer Duran working at any law enforcement agency and definitely not at this one. So, it’s our job as an executive team to ensure and take the steps necessary to ensure that this doesn’t happen ever again,” concluded Hipolito.
This is an ongoing criminal and internal investigation and more information will be released as it is available.
