A Southern California sheriff’s deputy has been charged with stealing items from an unattended home after he responded to a report of a burglary in a home, officials said Thursday.
Steve Hortz, 12, of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, was arrested Thursday and placed on administrative leave, sheriff’s officials said in a statement.
Hortz went home on July 20 after a report of a man dying of natural causes in the 1990s, officials said. They said he returned home three times in late July and mid-August, once to open the door in uniform and twice to remove things.
A security video from a home in the town of Yorba Linda, which has been contracted to serve the sheriff since 2013, caught the offenders, officials said.
“Deputy Hotters returned to the residence early in the morning, entered the residence through an open door, and found things on the recordings removing things from the residence,” Sheriff Don Barney told a news conference Thursday.
Hortz is accused of taking two safe, ceiling fans, a rifle case and other items “not yet decided.”
Sheriff’s officials said the attorney for the deceased’s estate contacted the department to report missing items and a video of the deputy’s home security.
The union of deputies, the Association of Deputy Sheriffs of Orange Range County, did not immediately respond to a request for response Thursday night.
“The deputy’s alleged criminal conduct is a breach of public trust, unforgivable and intolerable,” Barnes said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the District Attorney’s Office in Orange County announced an unrelated case against 41 Deputy Angelina Cortez, who is accused of taking a credit card from a suspect and giving it to her son. He was accused of filing a false police report.
The Orange Range County Deputy Sheriff’s Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Cortez’s case.
