City, State Bills Eye Ban On Cops' Sex With People They Arrest

NEW YORK CITY HALL — A city councilman and state assemblyman plan to introduce parallel bills aiming to make it impossible for cops to claim sex with someone they arrest is consensual, the lawmakers said Wednesday.

Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island) on Thursday will introduce a Council bill that would classify any sexual contact between an NYPD officer as inherently nonconsensual, making it a misdemeanor. And state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Queens) will file an Albany bill in January that would make such contact a felony.

The bills follow two former NYPD detectives' alleged rape of a teenage woman in Coney Island in September. The cops, Eddie Martins and Richard Hall, have reportedly claimed the sex was consensual — which the woman's lawyer flatly denies.

"There is no such thing as consensual sexual activity between police officers and people in their custody. That is rape," Treyger said Wednesday at a news conference outside City Hall.

Brooklyn prosecutors have charged Martins and Hall with 50 crimes, including rape and kidnapping. An indictment says they arrested the woman on marijuana charges Sept. 15 and forced her to have sex with them in the back of a police van.

Hall and Martins quit the NYPD last week, days before they would have faced a departmental trial that could've led to their firings. Both have pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.

Treyger said his and Braunstein's bills would fix a "glaring omission" in the state's penal law. It already says inmates can't legally consent to sex with corrections officers, and that parolees can't consent to sex with parole officers.

The state bill would amend that section of the penal law to extend that rule of consent to local and state police officers, Braunstein said. The city bill would make any sexual contact between cops and people in custody a misdemeanor under local law, Treyger said.

"Unfortunately, because there is no such law on the books, now the DA's office has to go about proving a rape case, which we know is not easy to do," Treyger said. "And this young woman is going to be re-living that entire experience in the public spectacle."

Officers who have sex with people they arrest can already be charged with official misconduct or other existing crimes, NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said at a news conference last month.

While it could help protect other victims, the proposed laws wouldn't change the fact that the ex-detectives clearly raped the woman as existing law defines it, said her lawyer, Michael David. The woman is also suing the NYPD for $50 million.

"Either way you look at it, when you’re in custody, two big guys with guns, badges, handcuffs, you can’t consent. There’s no such thing as consent under those circumstances," David told Patch.

Mark Bederow, Martins' attorney, declined to comment on the bills, but maintained that Martins and Hall will be exonerated in court.

"We believe that the central component of the allegation is false and we believe the evidence establishes that," Bederow told Patch.

(Lead image: City Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Coney Island) speaks at a news conference outside City Hall on Wednesday morning. Photo by Noah Manskar)