DA Drops Rape Charges Against Brooklyn Cops, Spurs Protests

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK -- Activists rallied outside the Brooklyn District Attorney's office Thursday afternoon to protest his dropping rape charges against two NYPD officers who had sex with a handcuffed teenager in their police van.

NOW-NYC protesters demanded the U.S. Attorney's office investigate ex-officers Eddie Martins and Richard Hall's encounter with Anna Chambers, as she calls herself on social media, after the Brooklyn District Attorney's office issued a new indictment on felony bribery and official misconduct.

"It's the kind of crime that unravels the fabric of a society," said NOW-NYC president Sonia Ossorio. "When those in law enforcement, who have taken an oath to protect society, aren't held accountable, we can't expect anybody to be held accountable."

"They were on a mission to rape her," Chamber's attorney Michael David said of the two ex-cops. "She was the victim of a brutal rape."

Martins and Hall might have spent up to 25 years in prison if convicted of kidnapping and raping Chambers in the back of a police van, parked in a Coney Island Chipotle parking lot, on Sept. 15., 2017, court records show. The new indictment charges call for a maximum of seven years.

Chambers filed a civil complaint agains the two offers and testified that she had been raped, but Martins and Hall argued the sex was consensual and that Chambers lied under oath, according to a New York Post report.

“They dismissed the indictment because they don’t believe [Chambers]," Martin’s lawyer, Mark Bederow, told the Post, “Cases have to be brought with credible evidence."

A Brooklyn District Attorney's office spokesperson confirmed the charges were dropped because of "serious credibility issues" and a legal statute that, at the time of the encounter, did not recognize sex between cops and a person in custody as a crime.

“Because of unforeseen and serious credibility issues that arose over the past year and our ethical obligations under the rules of professional conduct," the spokesperson stated, "we are precluded from proceeding with the rape charges.”

But the advocates who gathered outside Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez' office argued a jury would have convicted Martins and Hall on the DNA evidence, which proved the officers had sex with Chambers, and surveillance video that shows she was held in their van.

"It is not uncommon for victims of trauma to have inconsistencies," Ossorio said. "On the facts of the case, she's been very consistent."

One passerby, who stopped to ask the group why they were protesting, responded before walking away, "Cops never go to jail."