Miami-Dade prosecutor resigns as chair of Women’s Fund after feds arrest cop

Johnette Hardiman, the assistant state attorney who chose not to bring sexual battery charges against a Hialeah police officer indicted by federal prosecutors last week over similar allegations, has resigned as the chair of a prominent women’s rights group in Miami-Dade County.

Hardiman, a veteran prosecutor, submitted her resignation Thursday to The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade because of repercussions over her handling of a 2016 state investigation into Hialeah Police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr., according to the nonprofit advocacy organization. Hardiman’s resignation took effect immediately — 12 days before her two-year term as chair of the board was to end on Dec. 31, 2019.

“I am proud of the years I have spent working with the Women’s Fund and will always support the mission,” Hardiman said in her resignation letter.

“She thought it would be in the best interest of the organization to step down,” Kathy Andersen, executive director of the Women’s Fund, told the Miami Herald Thursday. “We appreciate Johni’s decision to step away from the organization and are grateful for her many years of board service.”

Hardiman’s handling of Menocal’s case came under scrutiny after the Herald revealed last month that she had not interviewed three of the cop’s alleged victims before dismissing them as lacking credibility. In a memo dropping the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office investigation into Menocal, Hardiman referred to the women as “gang members.” The memo described one of those alleged victims — a teenage girl who had tearfully told investigators that the cop forced her to perform oral sex on him when she was 14 years old — as a “bi-polar chronic runaway.”

The Women’s Fund, founded in 1993, has taken on a highly visible role in recent years, joining forces with the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee, the Office of State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle and federal agencies to lead The Stop Sex Trafficking Campaign during the upcoming NFL championship game in February 2020.

“We are going to send a very strong message that we will not tolerate the exploitation of our youth,” Fernández Rundle said last month at a news conference unveiling the initiative.

Andersen said she did not want to comment on how Hardiman and the state attorney’s office treated the victims.

“We are not in the business of publicly criticizing individuals or institutions,” she said. “Our focus is on working with partners to create systemic change that improves the lives of women and girls in Miami-Dade.”

Hardiman could not be reached Thursday and Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the state attorney’s office, did not respond.

In 2016, Hardiman declined to file charges of sexual battery, false imprisonment and unlawful compensation against Menocal after four girls and women alleged the previous year that he sexually assaulted and threatened them. She concluded the overall evidence was insufficient.

But last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed civil rights charges against Menocal, accusing him of threatening a teenage girl and a young woman to have sex with him.

The new case was the result of an FBI investigation that began after the state attorney’s office declined to prosecute the Hialeah officer. At least one of the victims in the federal case had also come forward during the state investigation. Menocal’s arrest took place roughly a month after the Herald published a story examining how Hialeah police and the state attorney’s office handled his case.

Menocal, 32, pleaded not guilty to the new charges in Miami federal court on Wednesday. He was fired last Friday after his arrest by FBI agents at Hialeah police headquarters.

A decorated 13-year veteran of the Hialeah force, Menocal could receive up to life in prison on the first charge because it involved “kidnapping” the minor teen by holding her in a camera-less room at the police station while pressuring her to have sex with him. He also faces up to 10 years on the second charge involving the young woman, who was allegedly stopped on the street and forced to have sex.

Menocal has faced allegations since 2015 that he sexually assaulted and threatened the four girls and women, though only two of the alleged victims are cited in his federal indictment. He is accused of directing one minor to remove her clothing “for his own sexual gratification” and exposing himself to the second victim and grabbing her. He was on duty both times.

This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 6:59 PM.