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LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A former Las Vegas police officer is accused of grooming a number of kids and paying them to interact in quite a few intercourse assaults, the 8 Information Now Investigators have confirmed.
Harvey Velazquez, 31, faces 21 expenses, together with little one abuse and luring a toddler to interact in a intercourse act, data mentioned.
The Las Vegas Metro Police Division fired Velazquez, who was formally a police officer going by way of area coaching, on April 23, the day of his arrest, a division spokesperson mentioned.
On April 1, an individual known as police about two kids receiving “inappropriate textual content messages” from a telephone quantity registered to Velazquez, paperwork mentioned. The kids’s ages will not be supplied in courtroom paperwork although detectives indicated they had been below 16.
Whereas talking with detectives, Velazquez admitted to chatting with the youngsters “quite a few occasions” and “defined that he knew speaking to the females was incorrect,” paperwork mentioned. Police then obtained a warrant to go looking Velazquez’s telephone, discovering textual content messages “sexual in nature” the place Velazquez allegedly “talked about exchanging cash for sexual acts.”
Starting in 2021, Velazquez allegedly exchanged nude pictures and movies of himself – some taken at work — with at the least one little one whereas additionally sending her cash by way of an utility, paperwork mentioned. Police allege in a single case, Velazquez accepted a proposal “to commerce oral intercourse” for a vape pen, paperwork mentioned.
In a single message from February, Velazquez allegedly paid a toddler $250 and met her at an off-Strip resort, paperwork mentioned. In one other incident, Velazquez reportedly instructed the kid he wanted to take her to buy Plan B – an emergency contraceptive tablet — so she wouldn’t get pregnant.
In all, police suspect Velazquez paid one little one as much as $800 “over the length of [the] incidents,” police mentioned.
Velazquez remained on the Clark County Detention Heart on $275,000 bail as of Friday. Ought to he submit bail, Velazquez will likely be required to put on an alcohol monitor and steer clear of the youngsters related to the case. A preliminary listening to was scheduled for Aug. 27.
Velazquez’s arrest was not made public till the 8 Information Now Investigators’ reporting. The age of consent in Nevada is 16.
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