Woman at center of police sex scandal may soon leave Florida
The teenage victim and prime witness in a California Bay Area police officer sex scandal may soon be free from a Florida jail, triggering the prosecution of seven officers.
Assistant State Attorney for Martin County David Lustgarten told the Miami Herald on Tuesday that he offered a plea bargain deal to “Celeste Guap,” the 19-year-old’s public pseudonym, after he filed a charge of simple battery against her Monday.
A $300,000 bond on a single aggravated battery charge has kept Guap in the Martin County Jail since Aug. 29. Police arrested her after an alleged violent incident that included biting at a Stuart drug rehabilitation facility.
“If she accepts the plea deal, things could be done in quick fashion,” Lustgarten said.
Guap’s presence in Florida laid another layer of suspicion on an episode that’s burned through several law enforcement agencies. A report issued by Richmond Chief of Police Allwyn Brown on the investigation into his officers’ involvement with Guap admitted the department’s Domestic and Sexual Violence Unit worked with Guap’s family to secure California’s Victim’s Compensation Program money to pay for rehabilitation. In the report, Brown says Guap chose the inpatient route, but cost was an issue.
She wound up at Wellness Counseling and Detoxification in Stuart while investigations continued.
“Representations that we ‘sent’ this teenage witness away or had her ‘removed’ to Florida distort reality,” Brown wrote.
Brown’s report admitted to ethical and policy violations, but no criminal acts by Richmond officers in dealing with Guap, who told the San Francisco Chronicle that 29 officers had sex with her for money or quid pro quo favors.
The Oakland Police Department, on the other hand, saw four officers fired and seven others suspended without pay last week. A former Oakland police captain got fired from the Alameda County district attorney's office in June. Oakland officer Brendan O’Brien committed suicide last September amid the scandal.
Oakland City Council member just told me "a lot of cops want Celeste Guap dead". Obvious, but good to hear it said.
— Mike Chase (@MikeChaseACLU) September 11, 2016
David J. Neal: 305-376-3559, @DavidJNeal
This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Woman at center of police sex scandal may soon leave Florida."