This past week, the story of two veteran New York Police Department detectives “arresting” and raping an 18-year-old in the back of an unmarked vehicle while they were supposed to be on duty, gained some more serious national coverage. Now, the Daily News is reporting that after 6 weeks of hemming and hawing and wondering out loud if a person that has been arrested can even consider having “consensual sex” with the two arresting police officers, we finally have charges.
Eddie Martins, 37, and Richard Hall, 33, of the Brooklyn South Narcotics unit, were arraigned Monday on a total of 50 charges, including first-degree rape, first-degree criminal sexual act and second-degree kidnapping, the district attorney's office said.
Both detectives pleaded not guilty to all counts, according to the district attorney's office. Martins was released on $250,000 bail and Hall was released on $150,000 bail. Each could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. They are currently suspended without pay, the NYPD said.
The event took place on September 15, and the evidence has been readily available for prosectors for some time. That evidence includes DNA, witnesses who were with the victim when the officers took her on a “drug charge” (marijuana and an anxiety medication), the officers’ own admission that they had both participated in very graphic sexual activities AFTER arresting the 18-year-old. And there was also video.
The detectives then allegedly stopped the van in Bay Ridge, about four miles from the park. After they switched places in the van, Hall forced the woman to perform a sex act on him, according to prosecutors. Later the officers drove back to the 60th precinct and dropped off the woman, telling her to keep her mouth shut, the district attorney's office said.
The young woman went to Maimonides Medical Center and underwent a sexual assault exam, prosecutors said. DNA found on the woman matched both of the detectives, while video surveillance showed her leaving the police van at about 8:42 p.m. that evening, according to prosecutors.
An attorney for one of the officers is clearly going to try to angle this as consensual saying that his client didn’t “forcibly” attack the woman. The entire police force suffers from a truly abhorrent form of double-standaritis. They believe that if you turn too fast, or are a person of color and raise your voice, you are forcibly attacking them. However, even kicking a woman repeatedly in the crotch and causing fatal internal damages isn’t “
excessive force.”