LAPD Chief Charlie Beck at the LAPD headquarters downtoWn Los Angeles on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (AP)
Two veteran Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with sexually assaulting – sometimes while on duty – four women acting as drug informants pleaded not guilty on Thursday.
Officers James Nichols, 43, and Luis Valenzuela, 44, were arrested and charged the day before with rape, oral copulation by force and pointing a gun at one of the women.
According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, the alleged attacks occurred over a period of three years.
The veteran officers were being held on bails of more than $3.5 million.
In a federal court filing, one of the women said she was forced to perform oral sex on one LAPD officer in the back seat of a departmental car while his partner acted as a lookout in the front seat. The woman, 19, said she was told, "You have to do what the police tell you to do," the teenager said in a federal court filing.
Another woman, also working as a drug informant, said the same two officers each forced her to have sex with them twice after threatening her with jail time.
The two other women told eerily similar stories.
Robert Rico, the attorney representing Nichols, said his client has maintained his innocence since the allegations first emerged nearly seven years ago.
"He's not guilty of each and every one of these counts, and he is shocked that after almost seven years the (district attorney's) office has decided to file charges," Rico said. "I think it reflects on the fact that the evidence is incredibly weak and all the alleged victims have credibility issues."
Valenzuela's attorney, Bill Seki, said his client is adamant about his innocence and that no sex between him and the four women occurred, consensual or otherwise.
He also questioned the credibility of one of the accusers and said the timing of the charges was shocking, considering the allegations first came to light back in 2010 and the officers were suspended without pay three years ago.
Prosecutors said the alleged rapes began in December 2008 after Nichols and Valenzuela became partners in the department's Hollywood Division, working as narcotics investigators.
Prosecutors say all four women assaulted had been arrested on drug-related charges at various times by the officers, and court records show at least two had been recruited by the officers to work as drug informants.
Those women have filed civil rights lawsuits against the officers. The Los Angeles City Council settled one case last year after agreeing to pay one woman $575,000, while the other case is still being litigated.
A third lawsuit is expected to be filed.
In one of the lawsuits, a 19-year-old woman working as a drug informant said Nichols acted as a lookout in the front seat of a departmental car while she was forced to perform oral sex on Valenzuela in the back seat after he told her, "You have to do what the police tell you to do."
Another woman said both officers each forced her to have sex with them twice after threatening her with jail time.
In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.
The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action.
California and New York — with several of the nation's largest law enforcement agencies — offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
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