Woman who claimed two NYPD cops raped her in police van while she was handcuffed has now accused their lawyers of slut-shaming her
A woman who accused two NYPD cops of raping her in the back of a police car in 2017 has expressed unhappiness after they escaped jail time and were just sentenced to serve 5 years of probation.
Anna Chambers, who was just 18 years old when the incident took place, in an interview with Inside Edition, said, "This is not justice for me. I'm sorry. It's really not."
The two police officers -- Eddie Martins and Richard Hall -- had arrested Chambers for possession of drugs during an undercover operation in Coney Island. The accused officers confessed that they had sex with Chambers but that it was consensual. They ended up being sentenced to serve 5 years of probation, without any jail time, on Thursday, August 29.
Describing the events of that unfateful day in 2017, Chambers said that one of the officers climbed into the back seat and raped her while she was handcuffed on their way to the precinct. She later filed a complaint against the police officers. The cops admitted that they had sex with Chambers but defended themselves by saying that it was consensual and that she wasn’t handcuffed.
Chambers claims that the attorneys for Martins and Hall dug up provocative selfies of her in an attempt to “slut-shame” her. They wrote in a letter that such images were “unprecedented” for a victim of a “vicious rape”. Chambers feels that her credibility was smeared due to those images and that the cops managed to wriggle their way out with lesser charges. The original rape and kidnapping charges were dropped against the cops after they plead guilty to 11 counts of felony bribery and misdemeanor. They won’t be serving any time in prison. But instead will be required to serve 5 years of probation, as per the plea deal.
They managed to get off easy, due to a loophole in the system, which has since been closed. At the time, it was a punishable offense if corrections and parole officers had sex with suspects in custody, but it wasn’t applicable to police officers. The district attorney’s office used the loophole to its favor, and a spokesperson said, “'We believe – as a newly-created statute recognizes – that any sexual contact between police officers and a person in their custody should constitute a crime. However, that was not the law at the time of the incident. Because of this and because of unforeseen and serious credibility issues that arose over the past year and our ethical obligations under the rules of professional conduct, we are precluded from proceeding with the rape charges."
The entire court proceedings were kept on a down low, and the plea was kept off official court calendar, after the lawyers of the accused cops requested for it. The DA’s office too did not share any details with the media about the appearance of the accused before the judge. What shocked many was that Chambers wasn’t alerted of the hearing either, as reported by New York Post. The prosecutors had reportedly requested for one to three years of prison time, but that was denied, and just five years’ probation was ordered.