Former Rare Staff
A local politician is looking to change the state’s rape laws after two former NYPD detectives accused of raping a teen in their custody were indicted on first-degree rape charges.
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Narcotics officers Eddie Martins and Richard Hall were demoted and then suspended without pay after they reportedly arrested an 18-year-old for possession of marijuana and an anti-anxiety drug. The victim said she was driving with two male friends at Calvert Vaux Park in Coney Island after dark when two plainclothes officers arrested her. They drove her to a Chipotle parking lot and she was raped while handcuffed in a police van and forced to perform oral sex.
One of her friends, whose shared his account with the New York Post under the condition of anonymity, said that the victim had his Prozac and Klonopin pills in her purse. The officers informed the group that the victim would be taken to the 60th precinct station for having unprescribed pills, but the friend was told that she wasn’t brought into the station when he went to check on her half an hour later. Instead, he found the victim at his car where she told him what happened. The friend drove the victim home. When joined by the victim’s mother, the friend drove the victim to the hospital. Hospital workers then called the police.
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The officers reportedly told their colleagues that the actions were consensual. Michael David, the victim’s lawyer said that his client was “shocked that the [cops] would say it was consensual after everything that was done to her.” Though Martins was identified as the rapist, a state law applies the same charges to Hall for allegedly helping Martins facilitate the attack. Martin’s lawyer, Mark Bederow, said that he and his client “look forward to defending any charges in a court of law rather than in the court of public opinion” following the news of the indictment.
According to The Intercept, New York City Council Member Mark Treyger hopes to specify the law for any future incidents. State law currently deems sex between certain groups of people (prison guards and inmates, parole officers and parolees) as situations where consent cannot properly be given. If the law changes in the way Treyger argues, sex between arresting officers (like Martins and Hall)Â and a detainee (like the victim) would result in an automatic rape charge as he believes proper consent cannot be given in such an instance.
The victim, who goes by the pseudonym Anna Chambers on Twitter, made her voice heard early in the case by using her social media to accuse the officers of rape. Her social media also came into play when the officers’ defense attorneys attempted to use what they called “provocative selfies” to debase her character. The move quickly earned backlash.
The victim shared a picture of Martins and Hall with the caption, “Since my pic was blasted everywhere… How disgusting:”
https://twitter.com/annaaachambers/status/925057771694850049
If convicted, the men face a minimum of three years in prison and a maximum of 25 years in prison.
