San Diego police officer charged with soliciting minor for sex found dead at home in apparent suicide on day of hearing
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: A San Diego police sergeant who was accused last month of soliciting sex from a minor last year was found dead at his Carmel Valley home on Monday in an apparent suicide.
Officers raided the residence of Joseph Ruvido, 49, after he failed to show up at the court for his scheduled arraignment.
While serving an arrest warrant, the authorities broke into his home after getting no response from him.
They found his body with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, shortly before 4:30 p.m.
“Everything appears to be that this is going to be a suicide,” San Diego Police Department (SDPD) Chief David Nisleit told reporters at a press conference Monday, Fox5 San Diego reported. “It appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound at this time. Our homicide unit protocol is out there doing this investigation, but all signs, all indications are that this is a suicide.”
Just hours before, Ruvido was formally charged with two counts of arranging a meeting with a juvenile with sexual intent and one count of attempted lewd acts on a minor between the ages of 14 and 15.
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Marquardt said that the sergeant was facing four years in state prison and lifetime registration as a sex offender if convicted.
The SDPD first received a Crime Stoppers tip regarding Ruvido in July.
He was identified as one of the men who allegedly had solicited minors for sex. He was taken into custody on July 26 and held on a $100,000 bail.
After posting bail, he was placed on unpaid leave and lived alone in a rented home and had no wife or children.
Although Marquardt refused to divulge the details of the deceased's case, he revealed that the alleged crimes took place on July 6.
"It's still very much an open investigation," he added of the allegations against Ruvido.
The police were notified after Ruvido failed to show up for his court hearing at around 1:40 p.m. and shortly thereafter, at around 2:08 p.m. The officers reportedly made several attempts to establish contact with him but were unsuccessful.
The accused was a veteran officer with the SDPD. “He was a San Diego police officer for 21 years and obviously we don’t condone what he is accused of, obviously but he was still a member of this department,” Nisleit said.