The warning signs were there long before Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy Neal David Kimball raped a 15-year-old girl while she was bound, then tried intimidating her into not reporting it.
The 20-year veteran of the force already had a sexual assault complaint made against him when he joined the department’s sex crime unit in 2013. He then had complaints made against him for inappropriate comments towards a sex crime victim whose case he was investigating.
But those complaints were found to be unsubstantiated as most complaints against cops tend to be found.
The 46-year-old detective pleaded guilty this week to a lewd act with a child and unlawful sexual intercourse. He is expected to be sentenced to three years in prison in August as part of a plea deal that will also require him to register as a sex offender, according to the Los Angeles Times.
He got off light considering he was initially facing 19 years to life in prison.
The incident took place in November 2017 but he was not charged until November 2018 after a month-long investigation stemming from a tip.
The detective who was making $150,000 a year with his salary and overtime was allowed to continue receiving his salary for another five months before he was placed on unpaid suspension. Now that he has been convicted, the department said they will begin the process of firing him.
But had they fired him over his previous complaints, which included grabbing a woman’s hand and forcing her to touch his genitals while he was on duty, the 15-year-old sexual assault victim would likely never have been raped by the detective assigned to her case.