A Miramar police officer was arrested Thursday on charges of having sex with a 17-year-old girl, records show. The girl never revealed to him that she was underage.
The 28-year old officer, Jose Hernandez, was hired in February 2020, the Miramar police department said in a news release.
He now faces one count of sexual activity with a minor and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to Miami-Dade court records. He had his first appearance earlier Friday.
“Regretfully, one of our officers has been arrested by the Hialeah Police Department on very serious charges,” Miramar Police Chief Delrish Moss said in a statement. “… I want to express my deepest sympathies to the victim and all those impacted by these events. Our thoughts are with them, and we are committed to supporting them and ensuring that justice is served.”
The girl told police that she had met Hernandez on the dating app Tinder around March, and that she had displayed her age as 23 when she made her account, according to a probable cause affidavit.
They began messaging on the app and then texting, according to the affidavit. At one point, she sent him a voice note saying that she had lied about her age and she was actually about to turn 19, suggesting that she was 18.
They had three dates, according to the affidavit. On the last date, they went to a hotel in Hialeah, where they had sex. They never discussed her age, she told detectives, and Hernandez never coerced, threatened, or forced her into having sex with him.
Afterwards, the victim told detectives, Hernandez stopped talking to her. She tried talking to him, she said, but “things were not the same.”
At one point, she told him she was pregnant, and he “got mad at her,” telling her it was impossible, according to the affidavit. She then blocked him.
In April, the girl was walking a dog in Miami Gardens when she saw a garbage bag and thought a dead body was inside, according to the affidavit. She called 911 and Miami Gardens Police arrived to find her screaming and pointing at the bag.
Officers inspected the bag, found no body inside, and determined that the girl was having a mental health crisis, the affidavit states. She told them she was not taking her medication.
When officers took her to a facility for services, they asked her for her parents’ information, and she gave one of the officers her phone. He looked at her text messages to try to contact the last person she spoke to, according to the affidavit, then noticed that she had been texting someone he recognized as an officer in uniform. He read the text messages and, suspecting that the girl was a minor, asked her for her age.
The Miami Gardens officer then saw a picture of Hernandez in his Miramar police uniform. Detectives interviewed the girl, who told them about her sexual relationship with Hernandez.
Hialeah police later used surveillance video of Hernandez arriving at the hotel and text messages between Hernandez and the victim to corroborate her account. Detectives also interviewed Hernandez’s fiancé, who said she had never rented a room with him in Hialeah.
In May, Hernandez called the victim, she told detectives, telling her that he was in trouble and was going to lose his job, according to the affidavit, though he did not ask her not to cooperate with law enforcement. She hung up on him.
Hernandez has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of the case, according to Miramar Police.
“Incidents such as this can damage the public’s trust in law enforcement,” Moss said, “but I want to assure you that we are committed to upholding the law and serving our community with integrity and respect.”