Fired Hialeah cop who sexually abused young women gets three years in prison

Soon after defense lawyers for former Hialeah police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr. portrayed him as a good cop and family man, three of his sexual-assault victims stood up in Miami federal court and brought home the reality of his crimes as he faced sentencing on Thursday.

“Menocal, you’re a coward,” said a 25-year-old woman, whom he forced to perform oral sex and have intercourse with him while he was on duty in late 2014. “You have no value or respect for women at all. ... He hid behind a police uniform to abuse a 19-year-old — me.”

“He ruined my life, and I can never forget about it,” said another young woman with mental health problems who was pressured into performing oral sex on Menocal in 2015.

“Whatever time you receive will clearly not be enough,” said another woman, who was detained by Menocal at a Hialeah police station and forced to undress as he attempted to have sex with her in 2015. “You used your power to abuse children, and that will be your legacy.”

Moved by their emotional statements, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams pronounced Menocal’s crimes “a betrayal of the badge” and sentenced him to a maximum of three years in prison, saying the 13-year Hialeah police veteran who had pleaded guilty to three civil rights charges “did not follow the right path.”

Menocal’s punishment capped a seven-year investigation that seemed to lose steam until the FBI arrested the sergeant in late 2019, accusing him of violating the civil rights of a handful of young women whom he detained and sexually abused while he was patrolling the streets of Hialeah and even in a local police station. Williams ordered Menocal, 34, to surrender to prison authorities on July 11, though federal prosecutors tried to persuade the judge to incarcerate him immediately.

Before his sentencing, Menocal gave a brief statement, but he did not apologize or express remorse for his criminal actions. “I have had some dark times in the past seven years, and if it wasn’t for my wife and family, I probably wouldn’t be here today,” he told the judge.

The disgraced officer was sentenced under a misdemeanor plea deal that helped him avoid a potential life sentence if he had faced trial. As part of the deal, prosecutors dropped the main felony charge, primarily because of the risk of calling his victims, including a few former sex workers, to the witness stand, where they would have been vulnerable to tough questions from Menocal’s defense attorneys.

During Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Menocal’s defense attorneys, Mycki Ratzan and Jude Faccidomo, tried to depict the police officer’s misconduct as “aberrant” — not indicative of a career highlighted by honors such as officer of the year in Hialeah. They proposed he should receive no incarceration in prison, and instead get a probationary sentence with time split between a halfway house and home detention.

“The man who sits before you today is not the man who committed these crimes seven years ago,” said Ratzan, who noted that more than 70 letters by family, friends and law enforcement officers in support of Menocal were submitted to the judge. “He’s a different person.”

Federal prosecutors, however, portrayed Menocal as a sexual predator in a police officer’s uniform. They condemned his criminal misconduct, saying he betrayed his “oath to serve the community of Hialeah.”

Prosecutor Kyle Boynton mocked the notion that Menocal’s crimes were “aberrant,” as his defense attorneys claimed. “There are multiple crimes here; there are multiple victims,” Boynton told the judge. “This is not a one-off. ... He has not offered an explanation for his behavior.”

In March, the fired officer pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor charges accusing him of forcing three female victims to touch his penis, perform oral sex or have intercourse while he was on duty, according to federal court records. The three incidents were part of a series of complaints dating back to 2014 and 2015 that included alleged oral sex involving a 14-year-old girl.

Despite investigations by Hialeah police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, Menocal was suspended from duty but then reinstated by Police Chief Sergio Velázquez. Velázquez only fired him after FBI agents arrested Menocal in December 2019, and the chief was removed from office two years later.

As part of his plea agreement, Menocal agreed to surrender his police license and not reapply for any law enforcement position. Still, with a misdemeanor conviction, he could possess a weapon and resume work in a firearms training school that is owned by his family. His father, Jesus Menocal Sr., is the former police chief in Sweetwater. His uncle, Ignacio Menocal, was also a police officer.

In addition, under the federal civil rights statute in his case, Menocal won’t be required to register as a sex offender with the state of Florida.

As part of the plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the first felony charge in Menocal’s indictment was dropped — though he acknowledged the victim’s allegation in a statement filed in court. The charge alleged that in June 2015 he stopped a 17-year-old girl, took her to a Hialeah police substation, and forced her to undress in a camera-less room while pressuring her to have sex. That original charge included an accusation of “kidnapping” that carried up to life in prison.

“I had never felt so disgusted and humiliated in my life,” the woman, now 24, said in court Thursday.

The three misdemeanor counts to which Menocal pleaded guilty don’t include any reference to the aggravating factor of kidnapping or threatening the use of his police-issued weapon, which carried up to 10 years’ imprisonment. So, as misdemeanors, the counts came with far less punishment under federal law — up to one year each.

Edward Stamm, the lead prosecutor, noted in a sentencing memo that “the absence of a specific felony enhancement for the defendant’s sexual abuse and abusive sexual contact is a core reason why the defendant faces a [federal] guidelines sentence of 36 months of incarceration instead of the much higher term of incarceration.”

Stamm also pointed out that Congress passed legislation two weeks after Menocal pleaded guilty in March that imposes far harsher penalties for the type of civil rights violations involving sexual abuse that he committed in 2014 and 2015 — but the new law is not retroactive to his offenses.

Two of the three counts to which Menocal pleaded guilty involved “non-consensual sexual acts” punishable up to 40 years under the new law, Stamm noted.

Although prosecutors did not indicate why they offered Menocal the plea deal, several sources say there was concern that his victims would not hold up under cross-examination by defense attorneys who planned to question them about their past, including prostitution in some instances.

Menocal’s arrest came one month after the Miami Herald reported that his alleged misconduct was first revealed to Hialeah police in 2015, when four women and girls told investigators that the sergeant had assaulted them. The youngest victim was just 14 when she said Menocal forced her to perform oral sex after threatening her with jail time if she didn’t comply. The oldest victim, in her 20s, fell out of a moving car and died just months after being questioned by authorities.

In his plea agreement and factual statement, Menocal admitted to using his authority as a police officer to deprive three female victims of “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

In court papers, federal prosecutors elaborated on how Menocal preyed on the three victims who formed the basis of the criminal case against him — though authorities cited several other victims. Police surveillance footage showed Menocal taking 11 women into a Hialeah police substation in a one-month period between May and June 2015, according to prosecutors.

“All of these incidents occurred on the weekend or after 5:00 p.m.,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “The video evidence then shows the defendant bringing each of these women into closed rooms in the substation that were not covered by the surveillance system.”

Menocal did not file reports documenting any of these encounters, a violation of police protocol.

Had Menocal’s case gone to trial, prosecutors were planning to present evidence of other young women who accused Menocal of sexually assaulting them while on duty. They also planned to call as a witness a police academy cadet who was allegedly impregnated by Menocal while he was working as her instructor. According to federal court records, Menocal tried to pressure the cadet into having an abortion.

This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 7:00 AM.