10/14/2026
🚨 Is it true? 🚨
“EPC Sheriff's Office Joe Roybal has not once but twice promoted his own wife in acting command staff roles.
When Joe Roybal was elected almost four years ago, one of his first orders of business was to promote his own wife to manager at the EPSO. Manager is equivalent to the sworn rank of lieutenant at the EPSO. His wife, named Melissa Roybal, spent about two years in a manager rank. Now, ordinarily, that would be bad enough, but it gets worse.
Melissa Roybal was a former deputy sheriff. That’s how she met her husband, Joe. As a deputy, she had zero leadership experience — she never promoted. After approximately two years in the manager role, Joe promoted his wife again, this time to acting commander. Commander is a command staff rank that oversees an entire division. They have a lot of decision-making power, and you can can count the number of civilians that have held that position on one hand if that hand had no fingers. It’s never happened before, and now Joe wants us to think that for the first time in EPSO history, his wife is the only one who’s qualified. However, EPSO policy states that if a person stays in an acting commander role for more than ninety days, they are to be paid in accordance with that rank.
So for the last year and a half, Melissa Roybal, with no leadership experience whatsoever, has been getting paid for the rank of commander. That’s over $138,000 a year. Now, Joey Roybal has promoted his wife again, this time to acting chief. This is where he crossed the line for many. Never in the history of a sheriff’s office has an acting commander ever been promoted up to an acting chief position. The first person to ever have it done, coincidentally, is the sheriff’s wife’s. She’s about to get paid as a bureau chief next, and that’s about $148,000 in taxpayer money she has not earned nor is qualified for.”
(Confidential information from inside the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.)
Under Colorado law, POST certification is required for sheriffs, undersheriffs, and deputy sheriffs. Noncertified personnel can only work under the sheriff’s direct direction with limited authority — so an uncertified spouse giving orders to sworn deputies as acting chief sits in a gray zone the office will have to explain.
📲 Call the County Commissioner to have this investigated.
