HOUSTON -- A Harris County Sheriff's deputy was charged with assault and a hate crime after he found his wife with another man, officials told Local 2 Monday.

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Deputy Faces Hate Crime, Assault Charges

Nathaniel Rogers Jr., 38, is accused of assaulting his wife and the man she was with while making racist remarks.

Investigators said on March 29, Rogers found his wife at her mother's apartment.

"Deputy Rogers was, I guess you would say, pretty worked up when the whole thing started," said Danny Billingsley, with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.

Officials said Rogers, who was in his uniform, assaulted his wife and used his gun to hit the man, identified as James McIntosh.

Rogers, who is African-American, then made racial slurs against McIntosh, who is white.

"He told him, 'Why should I believe you? I hate white people. I don't trust white people,'" Billingsley said. "Deputy Rogers jumped to the assumption that his wife and this man were having some sort of affair."

Police said before the deputy realized there was no affair, McIntosh told them Rogers dragged his wife by her hair and pointed a gun at her head before turning on him.

"There was an altercation that occurred," said Brett Ligon, Rogers' attorney.

Rogers was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and an assault enhanced as a hate crime.

Ligon said McIntosh blew the incident out of proportion.

"I've been doing this for 10 years, representing almost exclusively police officers. I've never had any client charged with a hate crime," Ligon said.

"Did he say he hated white people and did he make slurs?" Local 2's Cynthia Hunt asked Ligon.

"No. He retained a white lawyer and two other white lawyers and everybody that he deals with are white people," Ligon said.

Rogers, who was a jailer for the Harris County Sheriff's Department, was fired on April 7 because officials said he would not cooperate with the internal affairs investigation.

The charges will be brought before a grand jury.

If convicted, Rogers faces between two and 20 years in prison.