By Associated Press - Friday, November 4, 2016

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) - A New Mexico district attorney plans to move forward with prosecuting the case of a Las Cruces police officer who resigned in June amid allegations he provided drugs to a woman in return for sexual favors, a spokesman said Friday.

Local law enforcement sent the case stemming from their investigation of Sgt. Alex Smith late last week to the Dona Ana County District Attorney’s Office, said Patrick Hayes, a spokesman for District Attorney Mark D’Antonio.

Prosecutors plan to take the case before a grand jury in the coming weeks to seek drug charges against Smith, who the Las Cruces Sun-News reports was a seven-year veteran of the force before he resigned in June.

It was not clear whether Smith, who has not been charged, has retained a lawyer. Phone calls from The Associated Press to a number listed online for the Las Cruces police union were met with a busy signal.

The Sun-News first reported Thursday (https://bit.ly/2ew2o01) on the case involving Smith after it obtained documents indicating he had given methamphatamine to a woman while wearing his badge and uniform.

The woman later told an informant, who witnessed the drug exchange, during a recorded conversation that she had performed sexual favors for the officer in exchange for the narcotics and information.

The woman and the informant have not been identified by authorities.

It was unclear how Smith might have obtained the drugs.

The case comes two years to the month after another Las Cruces police officer was sentenced to nine years in federal prison in a sexual assault case.

Michael Garcia had been part of a unit investigating child abuse and sex crimes when authorities say he assaulted a high school police intern.

The Associated Press highlighted Garcia’s case as part of a yearlong investigation into sexual misconduct by law enforcement officers, which found that about 1,000 officers in the U.S. lost their licenses for sex crimes or other sexual misconduct over a six-year period.

Those figures are likely an undercount, because not every state has a process to ban problem officers from law enforcement.

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This story corrects a previous version that said Smith was terminated in June to say that he resigned.

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