Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley announced Friday that she would pursue criminal charges against seven current and former law enforcement officers, including five from Oakland police, for conduct related to Guap, an apparent victim of sex trafficking.
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A search of the Alameda County State Superior Court’s criminal case files today confirmed that none of the named officers have been charged.
O’Malley said her investigation also uncovered sexual contact between the woman and police officers in San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties as well as the city of San Francisco, though she did not have jurisdiction to prosecute there. The announcement came days after Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, who has compared the Oakland Police Department to a “frat house”, said she would recommend that the OPD fire one cop (three others have already resigned), suspend seven, and provide training and counseling to yet another.
The law enforcement officials charged included employees of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, Livermore Police Department and Oakland Police Department.
Critics also questioned why she had to go across the country and whether it would jeopardize her as the star witness for criminal cases against seven officers announced by the Alameda County District Attorney on Friday. His suicide note exposed other Oakland officers. O’Malley said the teen is a victim of sex crimes.
Alamenda County encompasses Oakland, the department where the scandal began.
Once under arrest, the report says Guap was in the backseat of a patrol vehicle and began beating her head against the auto window and had to be restrained further to prevent her from hurting herself. She remained in jail Monday, and her public defender Matthew Vasko in Florida declined comment.
Florida authorities have charged Celeste Guap with battery after she attacked a guard in rehab and offered her a plea deal. The Livermore Police Department said on Saturday that it had concluded a criminal investigation, but several police agencies are still conducting investigations related to the scandal. Richmond Police Chief Allwyn Brown wrote in an August memo seen by the Mercury News “the evidence will likely sustain multiple violations of policies – noncriminal – against several officers”. Others got accused of using police resources to get Guap information she wanted as quid pro quo for sex.
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 East Bay Express says the Richmond department paid for the rehab trip using Victim’s Compensation Fund money and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office told the Express it helped process the application. O’Malley said Friday that Smith will face charges of improperly accessing a law enforcement database in Alameda County in connection with the scandal.
Guap stated she ripped a blind off the window. According to the report, Guap lunged toward a female security officer. Dan Black, a Livermore cop who quit yesterday, faces two misdemeanors for engaging in acts of prostitution and two more misdemeanors for engaging in lewd acts in a public place. His colleagues, Giovani LoVerde and Sgt. Leroy Johnson, will be charged with felony oral copulation with a minor and failure to report sexual misconduct against a minor, respectively.
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But on Monday, prosecutors chose to charge her with simple battery, a misdemeanor, dramatically reducing the amount of jail time she could face, according to David Lustgarten, an assistant state’s attorney in Florida’s 19th Judicial Circuit, who is prosecuting the case.
