Former deputy, who got job back after previous conviction decades ago, indicted on child porn charges
SACRAMENTO – A former Sacramento County sheriff's deputy has been indicted on federal child porn charges, and it comes two decades after the same deputy was convicted in another criminal case but was able to get his job back.
These new federal charges show this former deputy Timothy James Durel was in possession of child porn dating back ten years.
It follows an earlier criminal history that was reported by our own station 20 years ago.
In 2004, CBS13 aired a report on Deputy Durel's criminal record then.
Reporter John Baird reported, "When is it fair to fire a deputy? That's the big question after the civil service commission ordered the re-hiring of deputy Timothy Durel."
That report shows Durel was fired and then re-hired following a conviction for trespassing, searching through a woman's dresser drawers he was romantically interested in.
Baird asked the woman's attorney, Stewart Katz, about the re-hiring then.
"Amazed, disbelieving, perversely humored I suppose, but mostly amazed," Katz said in 2004.
We found Katz now stunned by the re-offense.
"And you have to wonder, frankly, if he wasn't sort of emboldened by the fact that, 'Hey, I'm getting away with this. Who's gonna? No one's going to do anything to me," Katz said.
In 2004, Durel was re-hired following a civil servants' commission hearing – which led to calls by the NAACP, WEAVE and others to re-assess the re-hiring.
"What we're calling on today is a top-to-bottom review of the policies and procedures of the civil service commission," Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal said in 2004.
The civil service commission says they have no digital recordings of their 2004 decision to re-hire and will need to dig into their archives to find the case.
"The biggest part about that conduct is that it's the actions of someone who has no business having a badge, a uniform, and a county gun," Katz said.
Durel's indictment came down Thursday. The sheriff's office says he was released from duty this latest time in 2021 after a federal raid on his home.