Officer Brian Bunton will be charged with a felony for obstruction of justice and a misdemeanor for engaging in prostitution. Ms. Schaaf, the Oakland mayor, said earlier this week that she was “deeply sorry for the harm that this scandal has caused, particularly to community trust”.
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The following officers were charged in the scandal: Ricardo Perez, an officer with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, was charged with felony oral copulation with a minor and two counts of misdemeanor engaging in a lewd act in a public place. “I do not take lightly the fact that police officers engaged in sexual contact or online sexual communication with a teenaged self-described sex worker”, O’Malley said.
The scandal began to unfold with an internal investigation into the suicide of Officer Brendan O’Brien in September 2015. “Not only is she a witness in our case and we should have been consulted before removing her from the area, we’ve made it known [to Florida officials] that she is a victim of crime and we want her back here where she is supported and safe and stable”, O’Malley said. The scandal soon widened, as the woman claimed she also had sexual or other inappropriate contact with officers from other police agencies.
File-This July 8, 201, file photo shows Alameda County district attorney Nancy O’Malley speaking at a news conference at an Oakland, Calif., courthouse. In separate interviews, the woman has claimed that she first met O’Brien along International Boulevard, a stretch of Oakland’s troubled Fruitvale neighborhood that is notorious for the exploitation of young sex trafficking victims.
This week, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the city intends to fire four officers after investigators sustained findings of attempted sexual assault, assisting in a crime of prostitution, assisting in the evading arrest for the crime of prostitution, and several other violations.
San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Robert Himelblau said that while they haven’t brought charges against any officer yet, they do have an open investigation.
The wide-ranging scandal stems from a case involving a teenage girl who was sexually exploited by more than a dozen police officers throughout the region, according to numerous news reports and the young woman’s testimony. Once those revelations became public, the city saw three police chiefs toppled in nine days.
Earlier this year, she was transported from the Bay Area to a voluntary rehabilitation facility in Florida with funds provided by the California Victims Compensation Board, according to McMaster, the Contra Costa County prosecutor. She has said that she had sexual relations “with at least five Richmond officers”. O’Malley said that without Guap to testify against the officers in Alameda County court, she has no case. Some of the encounters happened in exchange for information about planned prostitution raids, she has alleged, and others occurred when she was underage. “It doesn’t matter if they’re a police officer, a doctor, a probation officer, or a lawyer or a judge”.
The Oakland police union says it is disappointed by the actions of a few officers linked to a sexual misconduct scandal involving a teenager and assured residents the majority of officers are hardworking and upstanding.
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In June, the East Bay Express newspaper reported that as many as 21 officers from the Oakland Police Department and other law enforcement agencies had exploited the teenager, including some incidents while she was underage.
