06 Oct Former Cop Gets 20 Years for Traffic Stop Sexual Assault

A former Webb County sheriff’s deputy who sexually assaulted a woman in his patrol car following a 2024 traffic stop will serve 20 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo ordered 29-year-old Ignacio Rodriguez IV to serve 240 months in federal custody, followed by five years of supervised release. Rodriguez must also register as a sex offender, avoid any contact with the victims, and remain detained until the Federal Bureau of Prisons designates a facility.

Rodriguez pleaded guilty on April 23, 2026, to a federal charge of deprivation of rights under color of law–the charge levied to any cop, judge, prosecutor, correctional officer, etc who violate a person’s constitutional rights . As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped a secondary count of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in a federal investigation. He waived his right to appeal the sentence.

According to federal court records and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the assault stemmed from a Sept. 1, 2024 traffic stop after Rodriguez spotted a car driving into oncoming traffic. After pulling the vehicle over, he ordered the driver and her female passenger to stand beside his marked patrol unit and shut off his body-worn camera.

When the women repeatedly asked to be let go, Rodriguez told them they needed to “convince him”—a demand captured on cellphone video recorded by the passenger.

Rodriguez confiscated the driver’s cellphone and ordered both women to follow his unit to a nearby desolate street. Once there, he ordered the driver into his patrol unit—leaving the passenger behind in the other car—where he forced her to perform oral sex and groped her without consent. Testimony at the sentencing hearing revealed that both women begged to go home, to which Rodriguez replied, “No, you have to convince me.”

Judge Marmolejo characterized Rodriguez’s actions as “brazen, calculated, and extremely cruel.”

“When a law enforcement officer commits sexual violence under the color of law, the harm reaches far beyond a single victim,” U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz said. “It erodes community trust and undermines what it means to wear the uniform. Rodriguez’s abusive and predatory actions here were not only illegal, but immoral and disgusting.”

Rodriguez joined the Webb County Sheriff’s Office as a correctional officer in 2021 before gaining a promotion to deputy in November 2023. He resigned two days after the assault. Sheriff Martin Cuellar publicly condemned the incident following Rodriguez’s arrest, stating that officers are held to a higher standard and that abuse of authority would not be tolerated.

The arrest history spans both state and federal actions. The Laredo Police Department first took Rodriguez into custody on Sept. 9, 2024, booking him into the Webb County Jail on state charges of indecent assault and aggravated sexual assault before he posted $70,000 in bonds. Federal authorities subsequently arrested him on a grand jury indictment on Jan. 8, 2025, holding him in custody through sentencing.

The FBI and LPD led the joint investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Leslie Ann Cortez and Brandon Scott Bowling prosecuted the case.