MORRISON – A disgraced former Rock Fall Police detective will do no prison time for stealing cash from the department's evidence locker.

As a result of a plea agreement, Veronica Jaramillo, 45, of Sterling, will serve 2 and a half years' probation and 6 months' house arrest. She pleaded guilty April 18 to three felonies: two counts of official misconduct (which also results in the loss of her pension) and theft, and to one count of misdemeanor theft.

Per the plea agreement, her Lee County case, in which she was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, possession, conspiracy, and four counts of official misconduct, all felonies, was dismissed.

Barring claims of ineffective counsel, she cannot appeal her conviction or her sentence.

Per the terms of her release, she must pay $1,000 restitution to the Rock Falls Police Department, submit to evaluation for and treatment of drug or alcohol abuse, submit her DNA to the state, abstain from alcohol and drug use, and stay out of bars. She can't leave the state without court permission.

She apparently is studying to be an esthetician (skin care specialist) – according to court documents, she has permission to leave her house "for work, school and esthetician testing," with the approval of her probation officer.

Jaramillo, who resigned May 27, 2016, after 11 years as a law enforcement officer, was the lead investigator in the Dec. 6, 2015, death of Paul Rodney Depotter, 27, of Rock Falls, who died of a fatal heroin overdose. According to police documents, $1,741 was found on his body and entered into evidence. It’s the same amount Jaramillo was accused of taking.

Her attorney, James Mertes of Sterling, filed an amended motion to suppress evidence in November in which he said that Jaramillo was not immediately Mirandized after her arrest on May 17, 2016, as the law calls for, and that when she was Mirandized, she asked for her lawyer but was told she couldn't "avail herself of him," and continued to be interrogated.

The motion also said evidence found on her and in her Sterling home should be tossed because the search warrant didn't establish probable cause – in effect, it did not properly connect Jaramillo to the home, or to an investigation of Jody Canas, also charged in the case. It also said police deliberately omitted information from their application for the search warrant that would have been important for the judge to have to determine the warrant's credibility.

The motion was not ruled on, but Jaramillo is being allowed to pay restitution with some of the money seized in the search.

In the Lee County case that was dismissed, Jaramillo was accused of leaking information of a pending investigation to accused drug dealers Canas, Rickey L. Richardson, and Lynn H. Robinett.

Robinett, 46, who was free on bail and facing the least serious charges, also took a deal. He pleaded guilty April 19 to two counts of manufacturing and delivering marijuana and was sentenced to 2 years' probation.

Canas and Richardson's cases are proceeding in Lee County Court.

Canas, 46, is the boyfriend of Jaramillo’s sister, Violeta Jaramillo.

He is charged with six counts: three counts of delivery of cocaine – one that carries 6 to 30 years, and two that carry 4 to 15 years; possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, also 6 to 30 years; possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, 3 to 7 years; and conspiracy, 2 to 5 years.

He is in Lee County Jail on $200,000 bond and has a status hearing July 5.

Richardson, 54, of Harmon, is charged with delivery of cocaine, punishable by 6 to 30 years; and two counts of delivery of cocaine, each 4 to 15 years. He is free on $50,000 bond; his next pretrial hearing is June 21.