Former Smith County deputy charged with accepting a bribe

TYLER – A former Smith County deputy accused of illegally assisting a drug dealer from Mexico is now facing a federal charge of accepting a bribe. According to our news partner KETK, 28-year-old Luis A. Sandoval was arrested in August and charged with misuse of official information in state court. It came after a months-long investigation by the East Texas Anti-Gang Task Force. Sandoval was employed with the Smith County Sheriff’s Office from November 2017 to August 2021. A federal grand jury returned an indictment against Sandoval in March on a charge of receiving a bribe as an agent of an organization that receives federal funds. The federal court documents allege that the bribe had “a value of $5,000 or more” and was “rewarded in connection with taking official action to protect the person’s illegal enterprise from law enforcement activity.”