Two NYPD officers who have been accused of taking turns raping a handcuffed 18-year-old woman in the back seat of their police van in Coney Island in September have voluntarily resigned.
Eddie Martins, 37, and Richard Hall, 33, appeared on their own at New York Police Department headquarters on Monday “and quit their employment with the NYPD,” according to a statement from the NYPD.
Martins and Hall were arraigned last week on a total of 50 charges, including first-degree rape, first-degree criminal sexual act and second-degree kidnapping, the Kings County District Attorney’s Office said.
NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said the charges “tarnishe[d] all of the admirable things accomplished by other, good officers every day in neighborhoods across New York City.”
“Had these charges been upheld in an upcoming departmental trial, I would have fired them immediately,” O’Neill said in a statement on Monday.
Both officers pleaded not guilty to all counts, according to the district attorney’s office. Martins was released on $250,000 bail and Hall was released on $150,000 bail. Each could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
An attorney for Eddie Martins, Mark Bederow, said his client’s resignation “has no impact on how we will prepare to defend the case.”
“It’s true that [Martins] resigned today, but we’re going to be focusing all of our efforts on confronting the indictment in Brooklyn and spending all of our time demonstrating that the charges against him are absolutely false,” Bederow said.
An attorney for Richard Hall did not return CNN’s request for comment.
The rape allegedly occurred on the evening of September 15 when Martins and Hall, plainclothes detectives, left their post without authorization and drove to Calvert Vaux Park in Brooklyn, the district attorney’s office said.
There, the officers stopped a car driven by an 18-year-old woman with two male passengers. The detectives made her remove her bra and expose herself to prove she wasn’t hiding anything, said Michael David, an attorney representing the 18-year-old.
They handcuffed the woman and arrested her on drug charges, and told the male passengers to leave and pick up the young woman later, the district attorney’s office said.
Martins allegedly told her that he and Hall are “freaks” and asked her what she wanted to do to get out of the arrest, the district attorney’s office said. Martins allegedly then raped the handcuffed woman in the back seat as Hall drove and watched in the rear-view mirror.
The detectives then allegedly stopped the van in Bay Ridge, about 4 miles from the park. After they switched places in the van, Hall forced the woman to perform a sex act on him, according to prosecutors. Later the officers drove back to the 60th precinct and dropped off the woman, telling her to keep her mouth shut, the district attorney’s office said.
The young woman went to Maimonides Medical Center and underwent a sexual assault exam, prosecutors said. DNA found on the woman matched both the detectives, while video surveillance showed her leaving the police van about 8:42 p.m. that evening, according to prosecutors.
David said his client feels the officers should have been fired immediately after the alleged incident, “instead of this dragging on for seven or eight weeks now.”
“She wants their conviction. She wants them then in jail. She’s not going to feel safe until they’re behind bars,” David said.
A pretrial conference is scheduled for January 18.
