Bail increased for Lincoln police officer in Sacramento child sexual abuse case
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- A prosecutor added new child sexual abuse charges stemming from Placer County.
- A Sacramento Superior Court judge increased the accused officer’s bail amount.
- The police officer was ordered back to jail until his new bail bond is posted.
A Lincoln police officer accused of sexually abusing children was handcuffed Friday and returned to jail custody after a Sacramento County prosecutor filed new criminal charges stemming from alleged sexual misconduct in Placer County.
Timothy Scott Jaekel, 52, the accused officer who remains on unpaid administrative leave, now faces nine counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a child younger than 14 years old.
The initial seven felony counts filed against Jaekel in October stem from alleged sexual abuse of four female family members in Sacramento County.
Deputy District Attorney Allen Tsikerman, who is prosecuting Jaekel, told the judge on Friday morning that Jaekel now faces two additional counts of sexual abuse stemming from Placer County sexual abuse involving a girl who was a friend of one of Jaekel’s children.
The prosecutor said Jaekel, if convicted, could face a maximum sentence of life in prison as a sexually violent predator. Tsikerman argued that Jaekel had the “same grooming behavior” with the girls, including at least one incident that occurred while he was on duty and in his police uniform.
Tsikerman told the judge that Jaekel has had the same pattern of sexual misconduct for more than two decades and would present an “extreme danger” to the public if he’s allowed to remain free on bail. The prosecutor asked the judge to keep Jaekel in jail for the duration of his criminal case.
Police officer pleads not guilty
Joel Weinstein, Jaekel’s attorney, entered a not guilty plea on behalf of his client to the charges listed in an amended criminal complaint filed by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
At his arraignment last month, the court increased Jaekel’s bail amount to $700,000. The defense attorney told the judge that Jaekel, who was free on bail when he entered the courtroom Friday, had already posted two bail bonds in this case.
Weinstein said his client has complied with court’s protective order not to contact and to stay away from the alleged victims listed in the criminal complaint, and there’s no indication Jaekel will fail to appear for hearings in his criminal case. The defense attorney argued that the bail amount should remain at $700,000.
“He has a life history of enforcing the law and following the law,” Weinstein said in court.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge David Bonilla said holding Jaekel in custody without bail is not the only way to ensure the officer complies with court orders while he awaits prosecution. Bonilla said he is concerned about the potential maximum sentence of life in prison, so he increased Jaekel’s bail to $900,000.
At the end of Friday’s hearing, a deputy handcuffed Jaekel and escorted him back into custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail. The defense attorney told the judge that his client was in the process of securing a new bail bond, so it was anticipated Jaekel would soon be released on bail.
The judge scheduled Jaekel to return to court Jan. 6 for further proceedings in his case.
Third time in jail
This is the third time Jaekel has been placed in jail custody in this case. Bonilla ordered Jaekel into custody late last month before posting the $700,000 bail bond.
He was initially booked into custody after the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office arrested the police officer on Oct. 16 following an investigation into allegations that Jaekel sexually abused four female family members from the ages of 8 to 16 over several years.
Sacramento sheriff’s officials have said they received a call on June 23 reporting that four of Jaekel’s female family members had been sexually abused years earlier by the police officer. Deputies spoke to one of the alleged victims, who is now an adult and lives in Arizona, and learned Jaekel was an officer with the Lincoln Police Department in Placer County.
Detectives from the sheriff’s Child Abuse Bureau interviewed the four victims, and they said there had been a long-term pattern of being touched by Jaekel over and under the clothing from the ages of 8 to 16 in Sacramento County, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s officials said that Jaekel also asked one of the children for nude pictures of herself and that each of the four victims witnessed Jaekel inappropriately touching the other female family members.
At Jaekel’s Oct. 28 arraignment, the prosecutor told the judge that more criminal charges were coming. Tsikerman said Jaekel would be facing additional sexual abuse charges as soon as he could get approval from authorities to prosecute crimes that allegedly occurred in Placer County.
The defense attorney has said in court his client is facing allegations that go back five to 13 years, and his immediate family disputes these allegations. Weinstein told the judge last month that Jaekel “looks forward to responding to evidence in court, not speculation.”
The additional charges stemming from Placer County incidents include allegations of sexual abuse of a girl that occurred last year.
No longer a Lincoln police officer
The Lincoln Police Department has said that Jaekel was placed on administrative leave in June when the department learned of the child sexual abuse investigation. Police officials said it was a standard procedure in these types of criminal cases to maintain the integrity of both the investigation and the department.
In an updated news release after Jaekel’s Oct. 28 arraignment, the Police Department specified that the officer has been placed on unpaid administrative leave and temporarily decertified by California POST, the state agency responsible for police officer training and certification.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, Lincoln police officials announced that Jaekel is no longer employed by the department. They did not release any further details about his departure.
“In addition to the external criminal proceedings, the Lincoln Police Department has an internal administrative investigation currently pending,” police said in Friday’s statement. “This internal process will continue to move forward independent of the criminal case.”
Jaekel was a police officer for 12 years, including as a school resource officer and SWAT team member with the Lincoln Police Department from November 2004 through December 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. He worked as a police officer from June 2011 through January 2015 for the Cobb County Police Department in Georgia.
After returning to Placer County, Jaekel also worked as a code enforcement officer for the city of Lincoln from August 2022 through October 2023 and in code compliance enforcement for Placer County from May 2020 through August 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
This story was originally published November 21, 2025 at 1:33 PM.
