Lawsuit holds Deming police, state accountable for ex-cop's sexual abuse

New Mexico’s Department of Public Safety and the Deming Police Department allowed an officer to abuse a 16-year-old girl over 11 months in 2024, a civil rights lawsuit alleges.

The former officer, Jesus Lopez Jr., pleaded guilty last summer to a federal charge of receiving child pornography and is in custody awaiting sentencing.

After his arrest in December 2024, Lopez, 35, initially faced 15 charges in state court including aggravated assault, battery, child abuse, false imprisonment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, interfering with communications and distributing media depicting sexual exploitation of a child. Those charges were dropped due to the federal prosecution, according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed in February, aims to hold Lopez to account for those actions, naming him, the city of Deming and DPS as defendants. The plaintiff is identified as Jane Doe in the complaint because the events took place when she was a minor.

Doe says Lopez was possessive and physically abusive throughout the relationship, confined her, threatened to kill her and on one occasion pointed a department-issued rifle at her. Lopez allegedly forced her to consume alcohol and engage in sexual activity, sometimes filming it. On one occasion, the lawsuit states he posted a sexually explicit video clip of them to the girl’s Snapchat account.

Lopez had access to that account, the lawsuit states, because he controlled her communications with a mobile phone he purchased for her. The lawsuit says Lopez would request sexually explicit images while he was on duty and sometimes used his department-issued handcuffs to restrain her.

The lawsuit states other officers were aware of the relationship and that Lopez even brought her along to a social event with other police at the Wet ‘N’ Wild Waterworld in Anthony, Texas.

Doe states that she was afraid to report the conduct to Lopez’s fellow officers and finally came forward only after Lopez began contacting her younger sister.

A New Mexico State Police investigation of Lopez revealed that he had been fired from the Bayard Police Department in Grant County in 2022 over efforts to contact women, including high school students and defendants with whom he had contact as a police officer, on top of other allegations involving policy violations and “belligerent” behavior.

Although Bayard’s police chief sent a misconduct report to the DPS’ Law Enforcement Academy a few weeks after terminating Lopez, the LEA investigation moved slowly, as recounted in the civil complaint. Lopez remained a certified law enforcement officer until after he was criminally charged in 2024. That inaction, according to Doe, allowed him to work for the Lordsburg Police Department briefly and then move on to Deming in 2023.

The academy revoked Lopez’s law enforcement certification over the Bayard allegations in December 2024 — after his arrest on the Deming charges, the lawsuit states. He was subsequently fired by the Deming Police Department.

“When law enforcement agencies ignore clear warning signs, they are not neutral bystanders; they are enablers,” Daniel Marquez, one of Jane Doe’s attorneys, stated in a news release. “This case demands accountability not only from the individual officer who abused his power, but from the institutions that failed to intervene when they had the opportunity and the responsibility to do so.”

The lawsuit seeks damages for Doe’s suffering and violation of constitutional rights, and also urges stronger enforcement of police certification requirements — including measures preventing officers with records of misconduct from moving on to police agencies elsewhere.

Attorneys for Doe alleged in a news release that she attempted to resolve the matter outside of court but neither DPS nor the city responded.

DPS spokesperson John Heil said, “We are deeply concerned anytime allegations involve harm to a child or sexual abuse, and we recognize how serious and difficult these matters are for survivors and the community. While we can’t comment on the specifics of allegations that are the subject of ongoing litigation, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety takes issues of officer misconduct and accountability very seriously.”

Deming City Manager Aaron Sera told the Journal the city had not yet reviewed the lawsuit with counsel for the New Mexico Self Insurance Fund, which provides liability and other insurance to municipalities.

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.