Despite forensic evidence confirming a pair of New York City police officers engaged in sexual acts with an 18-year-old woman they had arrested for marijuana before releasing her with no charges, prosecutors dismissed rape charges against the cops Wednesday, citing inconsistencies in the woman’s testimony.
The inconsistencies were not about the sexual act itself but about other details she reported from that night that prosecutors say destroyed her credibility about the alleged rape.
At the time of the incident, it was not against the law for police to have sex with detainees even though the power dynamics would make it easy for a cop to coerce sex in exchange for freedom – which happens more than they would like to admit.
That is what apparently took place around 8 p.m. on October 30, 2017 when New York City police officers Eddie Martins and Richard Hall pulled over a van and arrested a woman who goes by Anna Chambers on social media for pot possession, allowing her two male friends to remain free.
Chambers, who has been very vocal about the incident on social media, said the cops drove her around the Coney Island area of Brooklyn, taking turns raping her.
She visited a hospital after police released her with no charges and a nurse called 911 around 1 a.m., sparking the investigation that led to first-degree rape and kidnapping charges against the two cops.
The investigation found DNA from the cops’ semen on her body. It was also determined she was handcuffed while inside the police van.
But other consistencies in her testimony is what led to prosecutors dropping the charges.
They also threatened to charge her with perjury should she take the stand and testify, which is hardly ever done to cops who lie on the witness stand.
According to the New York Times:
The woman said that the former detectives pulled her over at about 8 p.m. the night before, while she was driving with two male friends in Calvert Vaux Park, near Coney Island. After they found drugs in the car, she said, they handcuffed her, placed her in an unmarked van and drove away.
She told the police several times that she was wearing a miniskirt that night, which made it easy, she explained, for the men to sexually assault her as they left Coney Island and drove up the Belt Parkway as far north as Bay Ridge. She also said she remembered the specific route because she recognized some landmarks: the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and her grandmother’s apartment on Shore Road.
But by 2 p.m. on the first day of their inquiry, investigators found security camera footage showing the woman leaving the police van in sweatpants, not a miniskirt, according to a detective’s report in the court record.
Hours later, court papers said, investigators also found the van, which did not quite match the description she had given. The van had bucket seats, not bench seats, as the woman had repeatedly recounted. She had also recalled seeing a laptop on the dashboard of the van, but there was not one, court papers said.
By Sept. 18, a prosecutor on the case had already “expressed her concern” about these discrepancies, police records show.
The two cops who have since resigned from the New York City Police Department, will now be charged with accepting bribery of services and official misconduct, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years as opposed to 25 years under the previous rape charges.
A lawyer for one of the cops said the cops were dedicated to their jobs and are still “hurt” by the rape accusations never mind the fact they had sex with a woman they arrested on drug charges, only to release her with no charges after ejaculating on her. A hell of a price to pay for freedom.
New York legislators have since passed a law forbidding police officers from having consensual sex with detainees.
Chambers, who still has a pending lawsuit, vowed on Twitter to continue fighting.
