A 32-year-old former officer with the Claremont Police Department, who only resigned at the end of January this year, was arrested earlier this month amid accusations of an on-duty sexual assault, according to multiple media reports.
Gabriel Arellanes was arrested on March 14 by deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Specialized Investigations division, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported.
His arrest came seven days after the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office charged him with a felony count of forcible oral copulation in connection with the Feb. 2024 arrest of a 38-year-old female Highland resident identified only as Jane Doe.
Prior to the felony charge, a $20 million federal civil lawsuit naming Arellanes, the City of Claremont and 10 city employees was filed Oct. 2024 by Doe’s lawyers, according to the Claremont Courier.
The civil suit alleges that shortly before midnight on Feb. 16, 2024, Arellanes found the 38-year-old woman and her children’s father “engaged in romantic activities” in the backseat of a car on Mt. Baldy Road in Claremont. The former officer, according to the lawsuit, noticed a glass pipe in the vehicle and told the couple to get dressed and get out of the car.
The interaction led to Doe’s arrest on misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia, while her companion was left with the car.
Doe was told she would be taken to the Pomona Police Station to be searched by a female officer because there were no female officers at the Claremont station, though CPD has seven sworn female officers, the Courier reported.
The 32-year-old former officer is then accused in the lawsuit of stopping his patrol vehicle several times on the way to the Pomona Station and sexually assaulting Doe, pinning her handcuffed body against the side of the car with his body and groping her.
After she was searched by a female officer at PPD, cited and released, the Daily Bulletin reports that without any money or a car, she reluctantly accepted a ride from Arellanes to the Montclair Transit Center.
The lawsuit further alleges that at the transit center, Arellanes parked his patrol vehicle in a remote and dark area of the parking lot, walked around the patrol vehicle wearing his firearm and physically forced the 38-year-old woman to orally copulate him.
Claremont city officials reportedly learned about the accusations on March 18, 2024, after a liability claim was filed.
The 32-year-old officer was placed on paid administrative leave and his police powers were suspended pending an investigation. The Courier reported that Arellanes received his full $76,574 salary during the almost 11 months before his resignation on Jan. 29 of this year.
Attorneys for the city responded to the civil suit in Nov. 2024. They denied the allegations and demanded a trial by jury. Arellanes’ attorneys in the civil case also asked for a jury trial before filing a motion to delay the civil suit while the criminal investigation and possible criminal court proceedings are pending.
Doe’s attorney filed a motion to oppose the civil case’s delay, though it does not appear that Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, who is presiding over the case, has ruled on either motion yet.
As for Arellanes, he posted bail a day after his March 14 arrest and was released. He’s scheduled to appear in Rancho Cucamonga Superior Court on April 30 in connection with the felony charge.
If convicted as charged by the San Bernardino County DA’s Office, the 32-year-old faces a maximum of eight years in prison and lifetime registration as sex offender, the Daily Bulletin reported.