A San Jose police officer is on track to be barred from serving in California law enforcement altogether as a result of child sexual assault allegations made against him San Benito County earlier this year, according to authorities and police records.
Anthony Parraz, who was sworn into the San Jose Police Department in 2019 and is now on administrative leave, is the subject of a temporary suspension of his state police certification by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. The Aug. 2 suspension cites that Parraz has pending criminal proceedings involving “egregious or repeated acts that violate the law.”
Court records show that on June 6, Parraz was charged by the San Benito County District Attorney’s Office with the sexual assault of a minor a decade ago, covering one felony count of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14, and one felony count of sexual penetration of a victim who was unconscious or asleep.
District Attorney Joel Buckingham said the alleged victim, identified only as Jane Doe, reported her assault to the Hollister Police Department earlier this year and said it occurred sometime between June 2014 and May 2015. That would be at least three years before Parraz joined the San Jose police academy.
Acting SJPD Chief Paul Joseph said his department is “fully cooperating with the investigating agencies” and confirmed that Parraz was immediately placed on leave after he learned about the criminal allegations. Joseph added that the department provided POST with information to the state agency for its decertification evaluation.
“These allegations are painful to learn, knowing our officers dedicate their lives to protecting victims,” Joseph said in a statement. “If the allegations are determined to be true, the department will act swiftly and they will never wear a San Jose badge again, full stop.”
Parraz’s decertification proceedings and criminal charges were first reported by KTVU.
He is one of four officers whose police credentials have been suspended by the state for conduct that occurred after Senate Bill 2, which went into effect in 2022 and created a public-facing decertification process to keep officers involved in serial misconduct or serious criminal convictions from getting police jobs at other agencies.
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George Brown received a POST certification suspension in November 2023, involving charges from a July 2021 assault case in which he is alleged to have punched a woman repeatedly during an off-duty road rage encounter during which he tried to call for police backup.
Matthew Dominguez’s certification is suspended while he faces charges of indecent exposure and sexual battery for and on- and off-duty incidents, most notably an allegation that he was seen visibly masturbating while working a domestic disturbance call in 2022, which led to his departure from the police department. He also faces charges for an alleged San Jose road-rage rampage in 2023.
Mark McNamara’s certification was suspended following his resignation last year, spurred by an internal affairs investigation uncovered racist texts he sent to one current and one former officer that, among other remarks, racially disparaged a man he shot and wounded in 2022.
Three other former San Jose police officers, two of whom left the department in 2001 and 2011, are listed by POST as having been declared ineligible for certification because of felony convictions. One officer who last worked for the department in 2022 voluntarily surrendered his certification earlier this year.
