A New Haven Fire Department lieutenant has been arrested for sexual assault — following a months-long police investigation into a night that the victim told investigators began with consensual sex, and ended with her being raped.
New Haven Police Department spokesperson Capt. Rose Dell sent out an email press release about that arrest on Monday afternoon.
She wrote that the 33-year-old New Haven Fire Department lieutenant surrendered himself to the police department on Friday. Police have been investigating the sexual assault case since December 2022. Det. Samantha Romano, who was assigned to the case, obtained the warrant for the fire lieutenant’s arrest.
“Detective Romano, through a thorough examination of statements and other evidence, identified [the fire lieutenant] as the suspect in a sexual assault case involving a 32-year-old female victim. This incident occurred while [the fire lieutenant] was off duty. After the investigation was completed, an arrest warrant was obtained on August 22, 2023, charging [the fire lieutenant] with Sexual Assault in the First Degree,” Dell wrote.
The fire lieutenant then turned himself in on Friday, was released on a $150,000 bond, and was arraigned in court on Monday.
The Independent was not able to reach the arrestee for comment by the publication time of this article.
On Monday afternoon, the Independent obtained a copy of the 10-page arrest warrant affidavit in the case, which was written by Romano and which sheds further light on what police believe happened and why the fire lieutenant has been arrested. According to the affidavit, an attorney for the firefighter told police that he would not voluntarily provide a statement regarding the investigation.
According to Romano’s affidavit, on Dec. 29, a victim reported to Officer Ashley McKernan that she had been sexually assaulted on Dec. 6. Romano interviewed the victim in person at police headquarters on Jan. 4.
During that Jan. 4 interview and in her report to McKernan, the victim told police that she had met the firefighter for the first time while attending trivia night at Trinity Bar and Restaurant on Orange Street. She went home with the firefighter and had consensual sex with him. Then, she said, he pressured her to have sex with him again, and she repeatedly said no. She said he became “aggressive” and that his tone became “harsher and more forceful, which made her uncomfortable and nervous.” She said she was “naked and vulnerable” and scared.
“During the assault,” the affidavit reads, the victim kept telling the firefighter to stop and that she was in pain, but he “aggressively continued” with no condom on. She said she cried “uncontrollably” in the room with the firefighter afterwards, and, a few days later, went to an urgent care clinic for a pelvic exam because of how much pain she was in.
The rest of the affidavit details interviews Det. Romano did with the victim’s friends, with bartenders and other employees at Trinity, and with the firefighter’s ex-wife. Investigators also obtained a report from the urgent care clinic the victim visited afterwards.
The victim’s friends corroborated that the victim told them at the time that she had been “raped,” and that she had been extremely distraught following that encounter. His ex-wife described multiple times throughout their relationship when she wouldn’t want to have sex with him, but he would pressure her into it anyway. She also told investigators that her ex-husband “would become a different person when he would drink.”
The affidavit also states that, on Jan. 27, Romano received five police reports from the Hamden Police Department, as the city firefighter used to live in Hamden.
Those reports showed that the firefighter in question had been arrested three times between February 2021 and January 2022. The first arrest was for improper storage of a firearm, the second for disorderly conduct and interfering in an emergency call, the third for disorderly conduct. Romano wrote that the latter two arrests were domestic violence cases. The state’s online criminal court database does not bear any public records of those cases, and the affidavit does not indicate whether or not the firefighter was ever found guilty of any of those charges.
Dell’s press release from Monday afternoon quotes New Haven Fire Chief John Alston as stating that the arrested lieutenant has been placed on administrative leave “pending the outcome of an internal investigation and these legal proceedings. An internal departmental investigation has been opened and we will refer all findings to the New Haven Board of Fire Commissioners and other City of New Haven officials for appropriate action.”
Dell concluded the press release by writing, “The New Haven Police Department is committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of the community, and cases involving sexual assault are treated with the utmost seriousness and resolve in order to bring justice for the victims. The work of the New Haven Police Department, accompanied by the full support of Chief Alston and the New Haven Fire Department, underscore a collective commitment by both departments to ensure the safety of New Haven residents.”
He was off duty, Why is this the business of the public? To tell so little and imply so much about this is premature but what about privacy?