San Diego County sheriff’s deputy arrested on multiple child molestation charges

A San Diego County sheriff’s deputy has been arrested by Chula Vista police on criminal charges of child molestation, pandering and luring a child into a sex act, among other offenses, according to Sheriff’s Department records.

Jaylen Devon Fleer, a 27-year-old deputy assigned to the San Diego Central Jail, was booked into the Vista Detention Facility on Wednesday night.

Fleer is being held without bail on a total of 15 criminal counts, including lewd and lascivious behavior with a minor, oral copulation with a person under 16 and showing or sending harmful material to seduce a minor.

He is due to be arraigned next Friday in San Diego County Superior Court in Chula Vista.

Sheriff Bill Gore and his spokesman, Lt. Ricardo Lopez, did not immediately respond to questions about the arrest. The Sheriff’s Department has not issued a news release announcing the charges against the deputy.

Chula Vista police said in a press release that Fleer turned himself in on Wednesday. The investigation began in response to two anonymous tips and involved three alleged victims, the release said.

Sources told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Fleer has been under investigation for months.

He was approached by Internal Affairs investigators in early May and taken off duty from the jail. It is not clear whether Fleer was on paid or unpaid leave during the investigation.

The district attorney’s office, which will prosecute the case against Fleer, issued a brief statement Wednesday.

“The case is under review,” the office said..”Charges will be announced at the scheduled arraignment.”

Fleer, who turned 27 last month, was a standout athlete at Santana High School a decade ago, playing baseball and football.

He was hired by the Sheriff’s Department in 2015 and assigned to the Detention Services Bureau, where monitors inmates at the county’s seven jails.

Fleer is not the only member of the Sheriff’s Department to be charged with sexual misconduct in recent years.

Deputy Richard Fischer was accused of groping and assaulting more than 20 women over several years before he was charged criminally in 2018. After denying the charges for months, Fischer pleaded guilty to four felony assault charges in 2019 and was sentenced to 44 months in jail.

Deputy Timothy Wilson Jr. was seen on security footage grabbing the backside of a teenage girl at a Vista restaurant in 2018. He later pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act on a minor and was fired and sentenced to one year in jail.

Deputy Juan Andrade resigned after an internal investigation concluded that he sexually assaulted a homeless woman in Spring Valley in March 2017.

Former Assistant Sheriff Rich Miller was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women before resigning in 2018. He was not criminally charged.

Fleer remains in an isolation cell inside Vista jail under a no-bail hold, records show.

McDonald writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.