HOUSTON – A former Cypress-Fairbanks ISD police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping a 12-year-old girl from Deer Park last year.
Jorge Luis Bastida, 23, pleaded guilty last month to one charge of sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 for having sex with a girl he met online.
He was taken into custody Tuesday morning. He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
“He swore an oath to protect children,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg is quoted saying in a news release. “He promised to protect and serve one of our most vulnerable populations and instead, he exploited and violated a young girl. He stole her childhood.”
Ogg added that the plea deal ensures Bastida admits his guilt and takes responsibility. It also means the young girl will not be victimized again by having to take the witness stand to testify against her attacker.
Authorities say after Bastida met the girl on the “Meet Me” app, he sent an Uber to pick her up in Deer Park and take her to Cypress on October 1, 2018. He then took her to a motel in the 10000 block of Huffmeister Road.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office, citing the girl’s testimony, wrote in a news release that the next morning Bastida gave the girl money for a candy bar before leaving the motel for work.
“We count on people to protect us and our children, especially at school, and something like this is an absolute abuse of that trust,” Assistant District Attorney Kaitlin Kaufmann, who prosecuted the case, said. “He should be held to the exact same standard, if not a higher standard, as what he holds other people to on a daily basis.”
Kaufmann credited the Deer Park police department with conducting a thorough investigation that included taking DNA samples and electronic tracking. After the girl was reported missing, officers were able to search her iPad and found the dating site, and messages from someone named “Jay.”
Authorities say around 11:30 a.m. on the day after she disappeared, the girl called her mother from the motel. When police picked her up, she told them about “Jay.” She was transported to the hospital, where medical experts said her injuries were consistent with a sexual assault. They were later able to link the man’s profile to Bastida. Authorities say surveillance video at the motel also showed Batista and the girl walking to the room.