
Luna County Magistrate Court files show 57-year-old Bobby Brookhouser was sentenced last week to 364 days of unsupervised probation as part of the plea and disposition agreement entered into with prosecutor Thomas Erickson.
That agreement involved reducing the original charge of perjury to tampering with evidence, and dismissing a second charge of false reporting.
A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but a legal option whereby a person neither disputes nor admits to doing the crime.
A Luna County Sheriff’s Department sergeant at the time, Brookhouser was accused of submitting paperwork that indicated a suspect admitted to a crime of criminal sexual penetration, when a video tape review by a Sixth Judicial District Attorney investigator revealed the suspect never gave a verbal confession.
Brookhouser, who worked for the Sheriff’s Department for 18 years, was initially placed on administrative leave, and later terminated.