City not liable in rape by a cop, judge rules

[Silent_Bob]

http://www.eagletribune.com/news/new_hampshire/city-not-liable-in-rape-by-a-cop-judge-rules/article_342a83ac-db45-5d2f-8823-6afc91999f0f.html



LAWRENCE - The city and its former police chief are not liable for the actions of a former cop who repeatedly raped a woman after picking her up as she wondered through the city drunk early on Sept. 26, 2008, a federal judge in Boston has ruled.

"Kevin Sledge's conduct in this case was predatory and monstrous, but it was also his own private conduct," U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel wrote in a four-page ruling last week that came three years after the woman alleged the city failed to train and monitor the former cop despite what she said was his record of sexually aggressive behavior against women.

"Because his superiors and the city that employed him cannot be liable under (federal civil rights laws) for the purely private conduct of their employees, no matter how egregious, defendants' motion for summary judgment is allowed," Zobel ruled in blocking the suit from going to trial.

Marsha Kazarosian, a Haverhill lawyer who represented the rape victim, said she would appeal.

"He used his authority and position as a police officer to (place) himself and her into a position where he could hurt her," Kazarosian said Thursday. "We believe we have a difference of opinion as to how the Appeals Court may look at that."

The Eagle-Tribune is withholding the woman's name because she is the victim of sexual assault.

Sledge picked up the woman at a Jackson Street restaurant while on a break from his job as a booking officer at police headquarters. The woman had been celebrating her birthday with friends when she became intoxicated and then separated from her friends, and went to the restaurant to use a phone to try to reach them.

The woman asked Sledge for a ride to her home in Nashua, N.H. Instead, Sledge - who was on duty and in uniform but driving his own car – instead drove the woman to the parking lot behind the police headquarters on Lowell Street.

He left the woman, who was in and out of consciousness, in his car and went inside to his overnight shift in the department's booking room. He returned to his car, a Jaguar, to rape and assault the woman as many as five times.

Sledge was convicted of rape and three counts of indecent assault and battery on Jan. 28, 2011. He serving a sentence of up to 12 years in state prison.

The woman's civil rights claim against the city and Romero, who has since retired and moved to California, hinged on whether the city and the former chief shared responsibility for the rapes and assaults.

Kazarosian argued that the city had attempted to fire Sledge after he was accused of at least two other rapes before raping her client in 2008, so it was aware of his "propensity for high risk, abusive and sexually aggressive behavior toward woman." Sledge was not convicted of the earlier allegations and the city kept him on the force, but Kazarosian said it provided him with no "supervision, monitoring, therapy, retraining, batter's programs" that she said would have been appropriate based on the allegations.

Kazarosian argued that the city and Romero therefore contributed to the circumstances that led to the rape.

By assigning Sledge "to a position at the station, at night, alone, unmonitored and unsupervised, inviting direct contact with women, knowing Sledge's past history and criminal record, (the city and Romero) facilitated Sledge's actions and thereby materially contributed to the situation or condition the led to (the rapes)," Kazarosian argued in a motion opposing the city's request for summary judgment.

The city responded that Sledge acted as private citizen outside his duties as a Lawrence police officer, and so the city and Romero cannot be liable.

"Any pretenses of being a police officer ended when Sledge put plaintiff in his personal car and drove to a private parking lot," the city argued. "From that point forward, the undisputed evidence shows that Sledge's acts were not in furtherance of any law enforcement objective: he did not radio for a cruiser to transport the plaintiff, he did not radio in the time and his miles as he was transporting a female, he never threatened to arrest her, he never threatened to place her in protective custody, he never used any of his police issued weapons, he never used his badge and he never took her to the police station."

Judge Zobel agreed.

"Even if Sledge was acting under color of law when he took a drunk citizen to the police station in his personal car, there is no evidence that his purpose was to 'act in an official capacity or to exercise official responsibilities,' " Zobel ruled, citing a standard set in an earlier case. "Indeed, when he left the plaintiff in his unlocked car to start his shift, he did nothing to report a drunk woman in need of aid. He then repeatedly abandoned his duty station, left the department's compound and entered his car to sexually assault the plaintiff, without invocation of his status as a police officer or any threat of force. The fact that Sledge was in uniform during his crime does not change these facts."