NYPD Detectives Quit After Coney Island Rape Charges

BROOKLYN, NY — Two NYPD detectives left the force Monday, a week after they were charged with raping a handcuffed teen while on duty in Coney Island, the department said. Detectives Richard Hall and Eddie Martins came to Police Headquarters on Monday to quit their posts in the Brooklyn South Narcotics Division, the NYPD said in a statement.

Hall and Martins were charged with 50 crimes Oct. 30 for allegedly raping an 18-year-old woman they had arrested in Coney Island on Sept. 15, prosecutors said. Both pleaded not guilty.

The cops quit three days before a scheduled NYPD Internal Affairs trial on disciplinary charges separate from their criminal cases, the department said.

"Had these charges been upheld in an upcoming departmental trial, I would have fired them (Hall and Martins) immediately," Police Commissioner James O'Neill said in a statement. "And I would have done so on behalf of every NYPD cop, because we owe the communities we serve – as well as the honest, hardworking men and women of this department – nothing less."

Prosecutors allege Hall and Martins arrested the now-19-year-old woman on drug charges after a traffic stop. Martins told her he and hall were "freaks" and each raped the handcuffed teen in the back of a police van before dropping her near an NYPD precinct, according to the indictment.

The NYPD had suspended them before they were arrested last week.

The internal charges against Martins related not to the alleged rape but rather his refusal to answer questions during an NYPD investigation, said his lawyer, Mark Bederow.

"We're going to be dedicating all of our energy and time towards vigorously contesting the charges in the indictment so we can demonstrate the falsity of the allegations there," Bederow said in a phone interview.

John Arlia, Hall's attorney, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The woman, who goes by the pseudonym Anna Chambers online, is also suing the NYPD for $50 million. Hall and Martins reportedly say the sex was consensual, a claim prosecutors and the woman's lawyer have rebuffed as outrageous.

"We always thought they should have been fired from Day One," the woman's civil attorney, Michael David, said in a phone interview.

Chambers is still distraught by the fact that the detectives are out on bail and that their lawyers keep trying to discredit her story nearly two months after the alleged rape, David said.

"The more this goes on, she gets traumatized more by the day," he said.

(Lead image via Patch)