A former Greenville County deputy who was fired in 2019 after he was arrested on a domestic violence charge is now accused of sexually assaulting a teen girl and soliciting sexual images from her, according to the Post & Courier.
Lexington County deputies arrested 31-year-old Michael Scott Valdario of Greer in September and charged him with 2 counts of 1st-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and 2 counts of 2nd-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
Court records show he was released on $20,000 bond following that arrest.
He was arrested again the following month and charged with 1st-degree criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping, according to the records. He was released on $15,000 bond in relation to those charges.
Valdario served as an officer with the Greenville Police Department from 2011 to 2015, according to records from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.
He was a deputy with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office from 2015 to 2019, when Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Ryan Flood said he was fired. Valdario’s termination came after the Travelers Rest Police Department charged him with 2nd-degree domestic violence. That charge is still pending.
According to an arrest warrant, about 1 month after he was fired from the Sheriff’s Office, Valdario asked a 16-year-old girl in Lexington County to send him sexually explicit photos via the social media app Snapchat. The teen sent him the photos, the warrants state.
Valdario asked the girl to send him more sexual photos of her the following month, according to the warrants. Investigators found screenshots of the messages on the girl’s phone.
In January 2020, Valdario grabbed the teen by her hair and sexually assaulted her multiple times in a vehicle in Lexington County, a warrant said.
The girl told investigators that she tried to flee twice as Valdario assaulted her, but each time he grabbed her hair and forced her back into the vehicle.
South Carolina Attorney General’s Office spokesman Robert Kittle said his agency is prosecuting the 4 sexual exploitation charges and the 11th Circuit Solicitor’s Office is handling the other 2.