FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, October 10, 2019
Two Former New York City Police Detectives Sentenced to
Five Years’ Probation for Having Sex with Woman in
Their Custody in Exchange for Her Release
Sentenced Under Plea Offer Made by the Court; Prosecutors Requested Prison Time
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that two former New York City Police detectives were sentenced to five years’ probation following their guilty plea to bribe receiving and official misconduct for having sex inside a police van with a young woman they had arrested, before releasing her without authorization and without reporting the arrest. Prosecutors requested a term of incarceration.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, “These defendants lost their jobs and are now convicted felons because of the appalling abuse of power to which they admitted. This incident led to a change in New York law, closing a loophole that allowed officers to claim that sex with a detainee was consensual. Unfortunately, we could not apply that new law retroactively. While my Office recommended prison time, we accept the Court’s sentence.”
The District Attorney identified the defendants as Eddie Martins, 39, and Richard Hall, 34, who were formerly assigned to the NYPD’s Brooklyn South Narcotics. They were sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to five years’ probation following their guilty plea in August to the entire indictment against them – two counts of third-degree bribe receiving and nine counts of official misconduct. The District Attorney’s Office requested a term of incarceration of one to three years. However, since the defendants pleaded guilty to the entire indictment the Court offered this non-custodial disposition.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on September 15, 2017, at approximately 7:30 p.m., the defendants, who were on-duty and riding in a Dodge Caravan, working as part of a team of plainclothes detectives assigned to Brooklyn South Narcotics and conducting a buy and bust operation in the confines of the 60th Precinct, left their post without authorization and drove to Calvert Vaux Park in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
Just after 8 p.m., the officers conducted a car stop of an Infinity Coupe driven by an 18-year-old woman with two male passengers. There was a quantity of marijuana in the front seat cup holder. The officers instructed the three occupants to step out of the car and asked if they had any drugs on them, according to the investigation. The young woman responded she had marijuana and two Klonopin pills. The detectives handcuffed the woman, told her she was under arrest and would be getting a desk appearance ticket. They let her companions go, the evidence showed.
After leaving the park, while inside the police van, the woman had sexual intercourse with Martins and performed a sex act on Hall, according to the evidence. The defendants then drove back to the vicinity of the 60th Precinct in Coney Island and released the woman, giving her back the Klonopin pills. They did not report the incident to their supervisor or to anyone else and had no authority to rescind the arrest or to release the detainee, according to the indictment.
DNA recovered from the woman was a match to both of the defendants. Video surveillance shows the woman exiting the police van at approximately 8:42 p.m., the investigation found.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Frank DeGaetano, First Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, Senior Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Nasar, of the Special Victims Bureau, and Assistant District Attorney Anthea Bruffee, First Deputy Chief of the District Attorney’s Appeals Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Miss Gregory, Chief of the Special Victims Bureau, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Joseph P. Alexis, Chief of the Trial Division.
#