A former Los Angeles police officer accused of sexually assaulting four boys, including family members, died in custody Saturday night, according to law enforcement officials.
Paul Razo, 46 — who was charged this month with eight counts of lewd acts upon a child — died at Los Angeles General Medical Center, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Monday.
Razo was undergoing treatment “for a pre-existing medical condition,” according to a statement from Lt. Michael Gomez of the sheriff’s homicide bureau. He did not answer questions on whether Razo was undergoing a procedure when he died at 7:24 p.m.
Gomez noted that an autopsy would be performed to determine the cause of death.
Razo, who worked for more than 25 years at the Los Angeles Police Department, was arrested May 10 by detectives with the sheriff’s special victims unit. He was accused of sexually assaulting four boys, believed to range in age from 9 to 13, at his Covina home. Two of the boys were his relatives, according to the L.A. County district attorney’s office; the others were the sons of a woman he dated and reportedly regularly spent the night at the home.
L.A. County prosecutors alleged that the assaults took place between 2006 and 2017, when Razo was a member of the LAPD. He left the department in April.
Razo had been awarded the department’s Medal of Valor for saving a man from a burning car in July 2016 in Glendora.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
