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New York Times - United States
21 November 2005

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Two Officers Are Charged in Se

Two veteran police officers were arraigned yesterday, charged with sexually abusing a Brooklyn woman, and the police and prosecutors detailed how the officers' harassment of the woman on the street early Sunday escalated into an attack in her apartment.

The officers, Charles McGeean, 37, and Fernand Clerge, 38, steered their marked patrol car up to the car driven by a 35-year-old woman who had stopped at a red light in Bushwick, Brooklyn, officials said, and motioned for her to roll down her window. They directed her to a bus stop across the street where one of the officers leaned into her car, asked her to open her jacket and rubbed his hand on her leg and moved it toward the hem of her skirt, the police said, citing the woman's account.

Over the next several minutes, Officers McGeean and Clerge's actions got worse, according to police officials and a prosecutor who spoke at the officers' arraignment in criminal court in Brooklyn.

After the woman reported the attack, the officers were arrested at their 83rd Precinct station house, suspended and forced to turn in their guns and badges. In court yesterday, a lawyer for the police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, entered pleas of not guilty.

Officials said that after the woman tried to rebuff the advance, which took place about 3:10 a.m. by the bus stop near Irving and Myrtle Avenues, the partners told her they would accompany her home to make sure she arrived safely.

Once they arrived, the officers entered her apartment, where the woman's brother and three children were sleeping, and abused her sexually, the authorities said.

In the living room, Officer McGeean noticed that the woman had a small tattoo on her back, lifted her shirt, said, "Nice tattoo," and touched her buttocks, but she pushed the shirt back down, the officials said. Officer McGeean then left the apartment and Officer Clerge closed the door after him, tried to kiss the woman and placed his hands under her shirt, the police said. At one point, Officer Clerge exposed himself to her, they said.

"He then took the victim by the head and neck and then physically pulled her head down," trying to force her to perform oral sex, Assistant District Attorney Kevin O'Donell said in court. She refused, and he began to masturbate, the police said.

Later, investigators recovered semen from her clothing and from the floor. The Police Department has asked the city medical examiner's officer "to expedite DNA testing," because of the seriousness of the allegations, said Paul J. Browne, the department's chief spokesman.

Police officials consider the case a random attack and have no reason to believe the victim knew either of the officers personally, though they noted that she recognized Officer Clerge from when he responded to a report of a burglary at a beauty salon owned by someone the woman knows. Still, details of their contact were murky and it remained unclear how well the woman and Officer Clerge might have known each other.

According to the police, the woman identified Officer Clerge by his first name and gave a physical description of both officers. She picked out Officer Clerge from photos, Mr. O'Donnell said in court. Both officers refused to appear in a lineup, he said.

During the attack, the woman was too afraid to wake her brother, the police said yesterday. After, she called a former companion, whom she had visited that night, and he told her to call 911. She waited until 4:49 a.m., fearing the two officers would return. A sergeant from the 83rd Precinct responded to her call, secured the scene and called backup. Officers McGeean and Clerge were arrested by 5:50 a.m.

"If there is any good news that is the good news, they did not ignore it, they moved on it fast," Thomas Reppetto, a police historian and executive director of the Citizens Crime Commission, a group that monitors police policies in New York, said about the department's response. The officers were released late Monday afternoon; bail had been set for each at $2,500 in cash, or a $10,000 bond.

The police said the officers' records were unavailable. But police officials said they believed the episode to be the alleged misdeeds of individual officers, as opposed to a systemic form of police corruption.

Attempts to reach Officer McGeean, who has been a police officer for 13 years, and Officer Clerge, a 7-year veteran, were unsuccessful yesterday. No one answered the door at the house where Officer Clerge lives in Prospect Park South.

In Huntington Station, on Long Island, where Officer McGeean lives in his parents' house, a neighbor, David Cohen, 56, said it seemed impossible to imagine the officer in trouble with the law. "He has a little child himself, it seems like he's too simple a kid," he said. "He's just too good and strait-laced a guy, I don't think he has a mean bone in his body."

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Article sourced from

New York Times - United States21 November 2005

Two Officers Are Charged in Se

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New York Times - United States
21 November 2005