Police: Man Posing as Cop Coerced Sex Through Threat of Arrest

A Fair Lawn High School graduate who allegedly posed as a cop and threatened to arrest a woman if she didn't give him sex was himself arrested this week at his home in Garfield, Fairfield police said.

Upon meeting the woman Tuesday at a Fairfield hotel, Joseph Lipham, 40, identified himself as a police officer and threatened to arrest the woman if she didn't have sex with him, Fairfield Deputy Police Chief Anthony Manna said.

Fearing arrest, the woman complied with Lipham's demands, police said.

However, as soon as he left the hotel, the woman contacted an acquaintance outside and relayed her experience, police said. The acquaintance confronted Lipham in the hotel parking lot — who again identified himself as a police officer — and took down the license plate of his vehicle, Manna said.

With Lipham's plates, police were able to track him back to his residence in Garfield, where was arrested Wednesday.

Lipham, whom Fairfield police said is not and has never been a police officer, faces two counts of sexual assault and impersonating a police officer.

Court records indicate this is not the first time Lipham has been accused of impersonating an authority figure to coerce sex.

A Giants Stadium cleaning employee accused Lipham of attempted sexual assault in 2001, after he allegedly cornered her in the women's locker room at Giants Stadium. The woman alleged Lipham flashed a badge and identified himself as an immigration agent before directing her into a bathroom stall and instructing her to remove her clothing as part of a search. She said he left after she repeatedly refused to remove her clothing and began calling her father.

Lipham was tried and convicted of second degree attempted sexual assault in the incident, but the court's decision was later reversed on appeal, according to court records.

He was again convicted of sexual assault in 2004, and this time served 2 1/2 years in state prison for entering the apartment of a female acquaintance of his then-girlfriend and attempting to sexually assault her, according to state police records. He was released from custody in October 2006.

Lipham is a registered sex offender in the state of New Jersey.