LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County’s sheriff said Thursday he has asked the California Attorney General’s Office to reconsider its plea offer to a former deputy sheriff that would result in a three-month jail sentence for the crime of having sex with an underage girl.
Sheriff Frank Rivero said he made the request this week regarding 39-year-old Derik Dion Navarro, who pleaded guilty on Dec. 7 to one count of felony unlawful intercourse with a child under age 16.
Rivero called the plea agreement “a travesty of justice.”
The Attorney General’s Office does not agree.
“We worked closely with the victim on this,” Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Lynda Gledhill told Lake County News Thursday afternoon.
“We believe we reached a just disposition in a case we didn’t even get until four years after the crime occurred,” Gledhill added.
The Attorney General’s Office took over the case earlier this year because new District Attorney Don Anderson had a conflict of interest due to previously representing Navarro in an administrative hearing regarding his employment with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The victim was 14 years old in May 2005 when the sexual relationship – which occurred when Navarro was not on duty as a sheriff’s deputy – began. It ended in May 2006, according to the investigation.
Navarro originally faced 18 felony counts and two misdemeanors for sex with two underage girls, with the final plea deal dropping one of those alleged victims, as Lake County News has reported.
Navarro and the California Attorney General’s Office reached the plea agreement on Dec. 7, as his trial was about to begin.
Lake County Superior Court Judge Andrew Blum is scheduled to sentence Navarro on Monday, Jan. 9.
Navarro will face three months in the Lake County Jail and three years of formal probation, with no requirement to register as a sex offender, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
Rivero said he spoke on Wednesday with the director of law enforcement for the California Department of Justice and the special assistant to California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
He said he expressed his opposition to the proposed plea bargain and asked them to reconsider it.
That Navarro could receive such a deal after pleading guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old “is unconscionable,” said Rivero.
Gledhill confirmed that Rivero spoke with the two state officials during a “zone” meeting for law enforcement officials that the attorney general had convened in Marin County on Wednesday.
Navarro worked for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office from 2002 until his termination in April 2007.
His termination followed lengthy investigations by both the District Attorney’s Office and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office which began in January 2007 after sheriff’s officials received information about allegations of misconduct.
Navarro was arrested a week after his termination.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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