Stepdad Accused of Rape Dies in Sex Shop
By Louie Gilot
Originally published in the El Paso Times, August 10, 2002
The former El Paso police detective awaiting trial for allegedly raping his 13-year-old stepdaughter in 1998 and 1999 died Monday evening at Thomason Hospital.
Jose Laredo, 41, was unconscious and bleeding profusely from the head in a video booth at Eros Adult Bookstore in Las Cruces, police said. Laredo had his pants around his ankles and was in the company of another stepdaughter, 18-year-old Desiree Laredo, according to a Las Cruces Police Department report.
Las Cruces investigators found no sign of foul play and suspected an aneurysm killed Laredo, said Sgt. Todd Gregory. An autopsy will be conducted, although Las Cruces police did not know whether it would be performed by the medical examiner in El Paso or in Albuquerque.
Laredo, an 18-year veteran of the El Paso Police Department, was arrested in November 2000 for allegedly having intercourse with and sodomizing a stepdaughter on more than one occasion at his home in the 4700 block of Round Rock Drive between Sept. 1, 1998, and Oct. 3, 1999. He was removed from his job as a detective at the Northeast Regional Command Center in December 2000.
Laredo was indicted in March 2001 on five counts of sexual assault of a child younger than 17, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a possible fine of up to $10,000.
His trial was scheduled to begin Aug. 12, but prosecutors had postponed the date because it conflicted with another case handled by his lawyer, Dolph Quijano.
"They were going to give me the new trial date on Wednesday (Aug. 7), the day I was notified of Mr. Laredo's death," Quijano said.
Laredo intended to plead not guilty, Quijano said.
Monday, at the adult video store at 2200 E. Amador in Las Cruces, a distraught Desiree Laredo first told police that she was not related to Laredo, that they just lived in the same house and that it was a coincidence that they had the same last name.
She also said that they didn't engage in a sexual act in the video booth and that it was the first time she had been there, according to the Las Cruces police report generated by Officer Kiri Daines.
Desiree Laredo told Daines she was sitting down and Laredo was standing with his pants around his ankles when he suddenly fell and hit his head around 2 p.m. She cried out for help, the report said.
Outside the store, police found the car they had driven to the store—a 2002 Pontiac Sunfire registered to Desiree Laredo and her mother, Veronica Laredo, Laredo's wife.
