Las Vegas police cadet hopeful faces child porn charge

Luis Eugenio Tinoco Jr.’s hopes of becoming a Las Vegas police cadet abruptly ended when he took a lie detector test and confessed to searching for child pornography, according to an arrest report released Wednesday.

Tinoco, 18, of Las Vegas, was undergoing a voluntary polygraph exam as part of the screening process to become a Metropolitan Police Department cadet on May 31 when he freely told the examiner about “a lot of his mistakes,” the report stated.

The next day, a Las Vegas police detective went to Tinoco’s house to further investigate the admissions. The detective spoke with Tinoco and got a warrant that same day to seize and search Tinoco’s iPhone.

Investigators found three videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children, and Tinoco was arrested on July 28, police said.

The investigation was prompted by Tinoco admitting to the polygraph examiner that had looked online for child porn six or seven times in the past month, according to an arrest report. He also spoke about having sexual conversations with young girls by video and watching exploitative videos on social media.

When the detective visited the then-police hopeful, Tinoco also admitted to having sexual conversations in which he masturbated with girls as young as 11, the arrest report alleged.

Tinoco also said he had seen child porn videos on TikTok and had reported those videos to moderators of the social media app. He also said he used the Omegle app, which randomly connects users in a video chat, to speak to young girls.

Tinoco told the detective he had never done anything in “real life,” and that the conversations and masturbation would happen by phone even after he realized some of the children he was talking to were just 11 or 12 years old, the arrest report stated.

A forensic analysis of Tinoco’s iPhone 12 found three videos showing a girl of about 8 to 10 years of age exposing herself and committing sexual acts, police said.

Metro’s cadet program is open to young adults between 18 and 21 who are interested in becoming law enforcement officers, said Officer Masael Parra. Cadets take reports and do other entry-level police work and are paid and receive benefits. At 21, the cadets then enter the academy to become police officers.

“They gain all this experience during their time as cadets, and they work hand-in-hand with police officers,” Parra said.

Anybody who applies to work at Metro has to undergo a polygraph test, Parra said.

Tinoco is facing a charge of possessing visual pornography of a person under age 16.

He was arrested on July 28 and booked in at the Clark County Detention Center, then released on bail. His next court date is scheduled for Aug. 25.

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com or 561-324-6421. Follow @BrettClarkson_ on Twitter.