A former Tucson police officer
fired earlier this year after a woman he arrested alleged he forced her to
perform a sex act, has been arrested in a new, unrelated investigation.
The latest criminal accusations
leveled against Benjamin Gaballa, 24, stem from a search of his home Tuesday as
part of a police investigation into claims he had prohibited or illegal
weapons, Tucson police said in a news release Wednesday.
During the search, officers
said, they came across a motorcycle that Gaballa had reported stolen to the
Pima County Sheriff’s Department in June 2012.
Gaballa was then arrested on
suspicion of one count each of fraud and forgery, both felonies, Sgt. Maria
Hawke said in a news release. The police inquiry into the weapons continues.
Gaballa was hired by TPD in
September 2012. He was fired last Aug. 22, after a woman said that after she
was arrested, he took her to a midtown parking garage and made her perform a
sex act. She reported the incident at the jail. Gaballa was eventually accused
of sexual abuse and sexual assault in that incident, police have said.