On Monday, two LAPD officers charged with raping women while on duty, were sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading no contest.
According to a press release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, former narcotics officers James Nichols, 46, and Luis Valenzuela, 45, pleaded no contest to two counts of forcible rape and two counts of forcible oral copulation.
The Los Angeles Times reported that, while on duty, Nichols and Valenzuela ordered four women into their unmarked cars on different occasions in order to force them to perform sex acts. The assaults occurred between 2008 and 2011. The two former officers reportedly played lookout for each other while they committed the rapes.
The women, who ranged in age from 19 to 34, encountered Nicholas and Valenzuela because some of them were informants and some of them were recently arrested. One woman who had been arrested by the pair in 2009 on suspicion of dealing drugs, testified that Valenzuela told her she could stay out of jail if she had sex with him. He had sex with her in the backseat of a Jetta while Nichols served as a lookout.
According to local station KABC., they also reportedly threatened the women who were informants that they would expose their identities to local drug dealers.
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“They tarnished the public trust”
One of the lead investigators in the case, Detective Carla Zuniga, expressed outrage at the former LAPD officers’ actions.
“They wore a badge to protect people. Instead, they terrorized them. They tarnished the public trust,” he told the Times. “People trust the police. Every time something like this happens, we have to walk into the community and say, ‘No, that’s not us.’ ”
One of the survivors spoke out about her experience, sharing that she is now terrified of the police.
“Every time I see a police car while driving, a panic takes over me,” she said, according to KABC. “My heart starts to beat so fast, like it’s about to explode.”
Three of the women have received more than $1.8 million in settlements from the city of Los Angeles, with the fourth victim’s case still pending.
If Nichols and Valenzuela had been convicted at trial, they would have faced up to life in prison. They have been in jail since early 2016.