Suspended IMPD officer sentenced in evidence tampering case stemming from 2015 death investigation

INDIANAPOLIS — A suspended IMPD patrol officer patrol accused of evidence tampering in a 2015 death investigation was sentenced on Tuesday following a guilty plea.

A Marion County judge ordered Francisco A. Olmos to serve a full year of probation while keeping a weekly journal and 240 hours of community service, according to online court records. He was also ordered to pay $475 in court fees.

Olmos will not serve a prison sentence.

Olmos had pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from a death investigation in which he was suspected of deleting text messages and Snapchats from the phone of an 18-year-old woman who had died by suicide.

In a probable cause affidavit filed in 2017, investigators accused Olmos of changing his contact information in the woman’s phone to obscure his connection to the woman.

IMPD previously said Olmos had served with the department for 10 years and was most recently assigned to the East District.

According to the affidavit, around 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2015, Olmos arrived at the woman’s parents’ house looking for her. Shortly after Olmos arrived, it was determined that the woman was dead of apparent suicide in her bedroom.

The woman’s father asked Olmos to call another officer, Daniel Bullman, who was the advisor for IMPD Explorer Post #435 at the time. Olmos used the woman’s phone to make the call. It was at that point, investigators believe, that he deleted a series of messages he had sent to the woman in the hours prior to her death, the affidavit alleges.

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Investigators say the woman met Olmos while participating in IMPD’s Explorers program, which she joined in December 2013 when she was 16.

Olmos told investigators he met the woman in January 2015 through her participation in the Explorers program. She was 18 at the time they met.

According to Olmos, the woman was on a ride-along with an ambulance crew when he met her. He offered to let her do ride-alongs with him, since he was assigned to East District, which is one of the busiest areas for police in the city.

Olmos told investigators the woman did approximately 15 ride-alongs with him between the time he met her and her death on Nov. 2, 2015.

According to the affidavit, Olmos said he and the woman were friends and that they would sometimes go for runs or do other things together outside of ride-alongs. Olmos denied having an intimate relationship with the woman.

In addition to messages from Olmos, investigators found 16 incoming Snapchat messages to the woman from Bullman on the day of her death. Unlike the messages from Olmos, those messages were not deleted, and their content was not revealed in the affidavit.

Bullman was not charged in the case, although both the woman’s and Olmos’ names came up in a case months later in which Bullman was charged with criminal confinement and domestic battery against his estranged wife.

IMPD spokesman William Young said Olmos was suspended without pay, pending a recommendation for termination to the IMPD Civilian Police Merit Board.

WRTV has requested a copy of the plea agreement from the Marion County Prosecutor's Office but has not yet heard back.