Ex-cop says newly imposed prison sentence has already set him straight

Less than a month after former police officer Walter Pacheco was sentenced to prison for his repeated harassment of a woman, he has asked a judge to rescind that punishment and give him probation instead, according to court records.

“The court’s action of sentencing the defendant to prison has impressed upon him the importance of living a lawful lifestyle,” his attorney, David Barajas of Des Moines, wrote last week.

Pacheco, 29, of Pleasant Hill, is asking a district court judge to reconsider the 19-year prison sentence that was imposed last month for probation violations in four of his criminal cases.

Pacheco — also known by the surname Pacheco Belen — has been convicted of burglary, stalking, tampering with a witness and willful injury, but prison sentences that resulted from those convictions were initially suspended. The victim of most of the crimes was an ex-girlfriend whom he continued to harass after being arrested and after being convicted and put on probation, court records show.

In August 2023, a judge warned Pacheco that he risked imprisonment if he continued to attempt to contact the woman in violation of a court order.

“He may be on the road to prison,” District Judge Jeffrey Farrell wrote when he opted to sentence Pacheco to 24 days in jail for a no-contact order violation rather than impose the suspended prison sentence.

“Defendant is a smart guy and has to figure this out right now,” Farrell wrote. “The court is not going to mess around with repeated no-contact order violations. His relationship with the victim needs to end.”

But not long after Pacheco was released from jail he allegedly tried to approach the woman at a public gym and tailed her in his vehicle, court records show. He was arrested for felony stalking, which led another judge to impose the looming prison sentence in April 2024.

Part of Pacheco’s request for a reconsideration of that sentence is based on an apparent procedural error. Barajas, his attorney, wrote that he was appointed to represent Pacheco in three of the four cases that were affected by the probation violation, and that Pacheco was, in essence, not represented for the fourth.

Barajas did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this article.

The matter is set to be discussed during a court hearing next week. Pacheco is still being held in the Polk County Jail, according to the jail’s records.

A trial for his most recent criminal charge of stalking in violation of a protective order is set for April 20, court records show. The crime is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Pacheco was briefly a police officer in Carroll, where he was forced to resign, and in Eagle Grove, where he was fired. He surrendered his peace officer certification in September 2022, several months after his initial arrest.