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Interim Chief Dominguez: “A very difficult time” for NHPD.
A city cop turned himself in for arrest Sunday on a charge related to an alleged sexual relationship with a 19-year-old undocumented Honduran immigrant he met after she called police for help — the third New Haven officer to be arrested in recent weeks, and the second officer to get into trouble for sexual misconduct in Fair Haven.
The officer, who is 31 years old and has been on the force since 2018, was served a warrant for arrest on one misdemeanor prostitution-solicitation charge.
The arrest warrant is sealed. That’s because the state’s attorney’s investigation into the case is ongoing. So is a police internal affairs investigation.
The officer has been out on administrative leave since police first learned of allegations against him in April. Click here to read a story the Independent published at the time about the incident. The officer in question was reached at the time and declined comment. He did not respond to renewed requests for comment Sunday.
Interim Chief Renee Dominguez told the Independent Sunday evening that she will wait until the completion of the IA investigation before deciding whether to forward a recommendation of disciplinary action to the Board of Police Commissioners.
The officer’s arrest follows the arrests of two other officers this month, one on family violence-related charges, another on charges related to domestic violence and computer crime.
It also follows the decertification of a now-former city cop, Gary Gamarra, for allegedly raping a sex worker in Fair Haven (involving a set of allegations he partially denied; read about that here). It could not be ascertained Sunday night whether Gamarra’s case has any connection to this latest arrest.
“As we continue to process the arrest of another officer, please continue to check on each other,” Dominguez wrote to her officers in a memo distributed Sunday evening. “Any questions I can answer please reach out. This is a very difficult time for us and we need to support each other as we navigate these incidents.”
Dominguez declined to elaborate on the details of the case because, she said, it remains an ongoing investigation.
Here’s what happened, according to three law enforcement officials familiar with this case:
Starting in January, a 19-year-old Fair Haven woman began contacting police. She had come to the U.S. from Honduras without legal permission. She was frightened that her “mule” was going to hurt her.
Her primary language was Spanish. The 31-year-old now-arrested officer, who speaks Spanish, was sent to respond to the call as an interpreter.
He later allegedly contacted the woman and began a sexual relationship with her.
At first the relationship was alleged to be consensual.
Then the woman alleged that the man was pressuring her to perform sex acts and be photographed, and she didn’t wish to. He allegedly offered her money.
That is the basis of the prostitution charge. People familiar with the case state that there is no evidence presented that the woman is necessarily a prostitute. Subsection (a)(3) of the statute under which he is charged covers someone who “solicits or requests another person to engage in sexual conduct with him in return for a fee.”
Immigrant-rights advocate Kica Matos Sunday night said this latest arrest fits into a larger pattern that concerns her about the direction of the New Haven Police Department.
“This is part and parcel of my concern over the fact that we no longer have community policing in New Haven,” she told the Independent.
She also repeated a concern she expressed at the time of the original article about this case back in April: that it could damage public safety by harming immigrants’ trust in law enforcement.
“This is a man who is supposed to serve and protect this community. The added vulnerability of an undocumented woman is even more appalling,” said Matos, who lives in Fair Haven. “This is very typical of a type of abuse that undocumented women face all the time. This is an example of why immigrant communities and communities of color are wary of police,” she added. “In immigrant communities, so much is communicated through word of mouth. The end result is the undocumented community in New Haven will not trust local police. I wonder how many immigrant women will not call police because of this, because they’re afraid. Who’s going to be left to protect undocumented women?”
It must have taken a lot of guts for this woman to contact the police in the first place. And then to be violated so egregiously by the person who was supposed to help her? We expect much much better from those who have sworn to protect and serve.