NYPD officials on Monday said they support a City Council bill calling on state lawmakers to make it illegal for cops to have sex with suspects in custody.
The agency’s support comes as two of its former detectives face charges in Brooklyn of allegedly sexually assaulting and raping a 19-year-old while she was in their custody in September.
“I think it’s egregious that my colleague had to ask to have a resolution passed here because a woman was raped and violated in the custody of NYPD,” Council member Debi Rose (D-SI) told top police brass at a public hearing.
“I’d like to know if NYPD is supporting the resolution.. to include individuals in police custody as being categorically incapable of consenting to sexual conduct with a police officer.”
NYPD legislative director Oleg Chernyavsky responded, “Yes.”
“That has always been longstanding department policy that this is completely unacceptable and wrong,” he said. “And the legislation being proposed essentially brings the law into alignment with what our policy has been.”
A City Council resolution has no force of law, but council member Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn) has also introduced legislation to make sexual contact with a suspect in police custody a misdemeanor — the strongest punishment available to city lawmakers.
The state Assembly has already passed legislation making it a crime for cops to engage in sex with people in their custody, closing a loophole in the law that already applies to correction and probation officers.
A companion bill was introduced in the state Senate earlier this month.