Ex-Sacramento deputy pleads guilty to sex with minor; sentencing set for September
Former Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Shauna Bishop pleaded guilty in a Sacramento courtroom this week to sexually molesting the teenage son of an ex-boyfriend, court officials said Friday.
In exchange, Sacramento County prosecutors on Wednesday dropped four other counts against Bishop tied to sex acts with the 16-year-old boy that were alleged to have been committed at the Folsom home where the boy stayed with his mother.
The victim is the son of a high-ranking sheriff’s officer who once dated Bishop. The boy’s mother and father are divorced.
Bishop, 46, will have to register as a sex offender as part of the plea deal. Sentencing is set for Sept. 13 in Sacramento Superior Court. Bishop remains free on bond pending the September date.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Bishop will serve up to a year in custody and be placed on five years’ formal probation, Sacramento County District Attorney’s officials said Friday. The judge will determine the exact term at sentencing. Prosecutors will seek the full 1-year term, DA’s officials said.
It was little more than a year ago — June 13, 2019, Bishop’s birthday — that Folsom police arrested the deputy, then on the job for five years in the department’s North Patrol.
Folsom police at the time of her arrest emphasized Bishop did not meet the victim through her job and that the acts did not occur while she was on duty.
The sex acts happened in late April 2019 at the home where the boy and his mother lived, investigators said.
About two weeks after the incidents, the boy told his sister what happened. She told their mother, according to court papers.
Court documents showed the boy’s father, who had dated Bishop for about a year until April 2019, had been suspicious of Bishop for some time and told his former wife of his suspicions, calling Bishop’s relationship with the boy “inappropriate.”
Prosecutors, in the filings, said the boy’s father suspected Bishop was “grooming” his son for sex.
Bishop defense attorney Richard Chan was not immediately available for comment Friday.
At a July 2019 hearing in the weeks following Bishop’s arrest, Chan vowed the sheriff’s deputy would be exonerated “after a thorough investigation” and suggested that the teen would be subject to extensive cross-examination at trial.
“Anybody can make an allegation,” Chan told The Bee in July 2019. “It’s my case and it’s not true.”
But the case never made it to trial.
Sheriff’s officials in a one-sentence statement Friday said Bishop is no longer employed by the Sheriff’s Office.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 2:58 PM.
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