Deputy Shared Pornographic Videos Of Himself, Assaulted Inmates In OC

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — A former Orange County Sheriff's Deputy pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two female inmates while he was assigned to work at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, the Orange County District Attorney's Office said.

He was sentenced to 364 days credit time served and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Arcadio Rodriguez, 30, was charged in Jan. 2023 with one misdemeanor count of sexual battery, one misdemeanor count of a detention facility employee engaging in sexual activity with a confined consenting adult, and one misdemeanor count of possession of a cell phone in a correctional facility.

According to the OCDA, the Stanton man has been on GPS monitoring since Jan. 2025.

Rodriguez apparently established an "inappropriate" relationship with two female inmates incarcerated at the Theo Lacy Facility, OCDA Todd Spitzer said.

The relationship included touching them in intimate areas over their jail uniforms and showing them pornographic videos of himself while they were in their housing locations, Spitzer said.

"Inmates are completely dependent on Sheriff's deputies and other jail staff for everything from food and medication to clothing," Spitzer said. "These women were awaiting trial and had no way of escaping a predator who literally held the keys to their captivity and ordered them to perform at his every whim."

Current California law only allows prosecutors to charge a misdemeanor when a detention facility employee engages in sexual activity with a incarcerated adult over the clothes instead of skin-to-skin, Spitzer said.

In response, Spitzer has been "aggressively" seeking a change to state laws to allow prosecutors to charge the behavior as a felony or a misdemeanor.