LEADVILLE, Colo. — A former Lake County undersheriff has been sentenced to 15 months in jail on two counts in an attempted incest case.
According to a release from the Fifth Judicial District Attorney's Office, 49-year-old Fernando Mendoza of Leadville was sentenced Friday to three months for attempt to commit first degree aggravated incest and another 12 months for attempt to commit invasion of privacy for sexual gratification.
Mendoza was also sentenced to a probation term of 10 years to life. A violation could lead to a life sentence with the possibility of parole, according to the release. He will also be required to complete sex offender treatment and register as a sex offender.
The former lawman was found guilty of those charges in December 2018. He was acquitted of attempted sexual exploitation of a child and embezzlement of public property.
"Sex offenders come in all stripes and while shocking that during his service as Undersheriff, the defendant was an active child predator, it is only fitting that now the stripes he shows will be prison stripes," District Attorney Bruce Brown said in the release. "We are grateful to the many survivors who bravely came forward to tell the truth. Without their courage, this day of reckoning would never have come."
The District Attorney's Office said Mendoza was "grooming" a family member. That's when a child is subject to a sexual predator's action that might appear normal but is intended to build trust and manipulate the child into sexual activity, the DA said.
Mendoza was fired from the Lake County Sheriff's Office in 2017 amid sexual harassment allegations from women working at the Sheriff's Office. Charges related to those allegations were dropped, but the sexual harassment investigation led to information connecting Mendoza the incest charges, the release states.
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