There are nationwide rules prohibiting probation officers, as well as prison and jail guards, from sexual contact with a person under their supervision. But even in the most extraordinary circumstances, law enforcement officers in 35 states can have sex with someone in their custody with minimal, or no, repercussions—and beat a sexual assault or rape charge by claiming their detainee consented.
In September 2017, two plainclothes detectives encountered two men and a woman in a parked car in Brooklyn with a cupholder full of marijuana. They let the two men go, but they took the 18-year-old woman, Anna, “into custody,” handcuffing her and leading her into the back of an unmarked van with tinted windows. For nearly an hour, Anna says, the two men—both more than 6’ to Anna’s 5’—assaulted her.
Anna said the detectives took turns raping her in the backseat as the van cruised the dark streets and as she sat handcuffed, crying and repeatedly telling them “No.” Between assaults, she said, the van pulled over so the cops could switch drivers. Less than an hour later, a few minutes’ drive from where it all began, the detectives dropped Anna off on the side of the road, a quarter-mile from a police station, surveillance footage shows. She stood on the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around her chest, looking up and down the dimly lit street and pacing slowly before borrowing a cell phone from a passerby to call a friend.
The cops made no arrest, issued no citation, filed no paperwork about the stop. Hours later, Anna and her mother went to a hospital, where Anna told nurses two detectives had sexually assaulted her, according to hospital records. Semen collected in Anna’s rape kit matched the DNA of detectives Eddie Martins, 37, and Richard Hall, 33, of the Brooklyn South narcotics unit. Both have since resigned from the force and been charged with rape.
Clear cut as this case seems, Martins and Hall could still prevail on a consent defense.
Of at least 158 law enforcement officers charged since 2006 with sexual assault, sexual battery, or unlawful sexual contact with somebody under their control, at least 26 have been acquitted or had charges dropped based on the consent defense, according to my review of a Buffalo News database of more than 700 law enforcement officers accused of sexual misconduct.