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NYPD detectives accused of raping woman in police van avoid jail time
Politico
Fri August 30, 2019
Area: New York
Two NYPD detectives who had been accused of raping a young Brooklyn woman in a police van will avoid jail time after cutting a plea deal in a case that sparked widespread outrage and a change in state law.
The former detectives - Eddie Martins and Richard Hall - pleaded guilty to official misconduct and receiving a bribe and will receive five years probation.
"These defendants engaged in a shocking abuse of power which they finally acknowledged," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement. "While I would have preferred to see them serve prison time, they are no longer members of our police department and with today's plea are convicted felons."
A judge agreed to the deal over objections from the DA, who asked for jail time, Gonzalez's spokesperson said.
The officers were originally charged with rape, sexual assault and kidnapping for having sex in the back of a police van with an 18-year-old woman they arrested for marijuana possession. Those charges were dropped in March, and they were instead hit with lesser charges of official misconduct and receiving bribes.
At the time of the 2017 incident, New York had no law making it a crime for police officers to have sex with someone in their custody. The cops argued the sex was consensual, though the woman has said she was raped and forced to perform oral sex.
"I am disgusted. The bottom line is two NYPD detectives raped a teenager in their custody in my district and they are not going to jail, nor will they be registered as sex offenders," said City Council Member Mark Treyger, who pushed for a change in the law. "That is the sorry state of our justice system. This is why it is so difficult for survivors of sexual assault to come forward."
Prosecutors said Martins and Hall stopped a car the 18-year-old woman was driving near Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend and found marijuana in a cup holder. They handcuffed her and put her in the back of a police van, where one detective had sexual intercourse with her and the other received oral sex. They then let her go without reporting the arrest.
The two men resigned from the NYPD after being accused of rape.
The case exposed a loophole in state law, which made it a crime for a correction officer or parole officer to have sex with a person in custody, but did not apply to police officers.
Last year, the state Legislature voted to make it rape in the third degree for a police officer to have sex with someone in custody.
"When you have someone in custody, you have such power over their future," said Assemblyman Ed Braunstein, who sponsored the legislation. "The power dynamic is such that the person in custody really doesn't have the power to consent."
Prosecutors cited inconsistencies in the alleged victim's testimony in dropping the rape charges.
"As a result of this disturbing incident, New York passed a law to prohibit police officers from having sex with people in their custody, closing a loophole that had allowed officers to claim the sex was consensual," Gonzalez said. "We could not apply the new law retroactively, and serious credibility issues in this case precluded us from proceeding on additional charges, yet we remained committed to holding these defendants accountable."
The victim's attorney, Michael David, said he plans to push for a federal civil rights investigation into the case.
"It's just outrageous that these rapists could go free like that," he said. "It's sending the worst message to victims of police sexual misconduct in America, that police could kidnap someone, rape her, and throw her on the street, and get away with it."
Mark Bederow, an attorney for Martins, blamed the Brooklyn DA's office for attempting to prosecute the case as a rape in the first place.
"It was a disgrace. This never should have been prosecuted as a rape case. The Brooklyn DA's office knew immediately, within hours and days, that the witness lied about virtually everything," he said. "They should have nipped this in the bud immediately."
He said it was the alleged victim who initiated the offer of sex in exchange for her release.
"She was the driving force. She offered the bribe to get out of the arrest and immediately exploited the facts to bring a $50 million lawsuit," Bederow said.
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