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Utah County deputy is fired amid accusations of child molestation in Arizona

(Photo courtesy Utah County Sheriff's Office) Gerald Salcido

A police deputy who is in custody in Arizona amid accusations that he molested children in the 1980s has been fired from his job with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.

Gerald Salcido was arrested earlier this month after new evidence linked police to accusations of sexual misconduct that were levied against him in the 1990s. He was booked into jail on Jan. 5 and was expected to be extradited to Maricopa County, Ariz.

Utah County did not fire Salcido, 63, “on the merits of the case in Arizona,” according to Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Spencer Cannon.

Salcido missed shifts “without adequate cause,” Cannon said Tuesday, explaining that county officials did not believe Salcido’s reason for absence was satisfactory. Salcido was a Utah County deputy for 14 years, Cannon told The Salt Lake Tribune earlier this month.

In 1995, two people told Mesa, Ariz., police that Salcido sexually abused them when they were children from 1980 to 1986, a detective from that city said earlier this month. The detective said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Salcido in the ’90s.

Police reopened the case in September after a witness talked to authorities.