Police cadet said her trainer, a Hialeah cop, impregnated her. Her career ended. His didn’t
When three female students at the Miami Dade College School of Justice noticed a classmate with a bulging belly, they asked her if she was pregnant.
Yes, the 22-year-old cadet told them — and the father was Hialeah Police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr., her training adviser at the prestigious law enforcement academy. Menocal knew about the pregnancy, she said.
The resulting scandal would end her fledgling career in law enforcement. His would continue as if nothing had happened.
The other cadets were well aware something was going on between the student and Menocal, a tall and muscular SWAT team member who led the prospective law enforcement officers through rigorous early morning drills and worked as a recruiter at the school for Hialeah police.
The student told her classmates that she and Menocal were exchanging flirty texts, three fellow cadets later told Hialeah Police Department internal affairs investigators in sworn interviews. She even said they were having sex in his patrol truck before early-morning physical drills, one trainee said.
Her classmates told her she had to inform the college of the pregnancy. Doing the intense workouts that were part of their coursework during the summer of 2017 could damage the baby’s health.
On a Friday afternoon, the woman approached another training adviser and told him what had happened. But over the weekend Menocal repeatedly texted the pregnant student, telling her to withdraw her claim, according to two sources familiar with their relationship. Menocal also told the student that he would refuse to help anyone who spoke to investigators if they applied for a job with Hialeah police, text messages exchanged between the pregnant cadet and another trainee over that weekend show.
The pressure tactics seemed to work.
“Sucks for everyone who was trying to get hired for Hialeah, but they snitched on us,” the cadet wrote in the messages, which were obtained by Hialeah police investigators. “So Menocal is pissed. And me too. ... Menocal is going to deny everything on Monday.”
“He’s pissed ... with the class,” she added. “But the class doesn’t have any proof about Menocal and me. ... So we’re just gonna deny everything.”
On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017, when the woman met with School of Justice Director Paul Kiley and Rene Revilla — the training adviser she told about the pregnancy three days earlier — she claimed she had made the whole thing up.
“You are lying to Mr. Kiley because that’s not what you told me Friday afternoon,” Revilla recounted telling the woman, according to an audio recording of his interview with Hialeah police investigators.
In the end, the School of Justice undertook no formal investigation. The woman left the law enforcement academy immediately after the incident. It is unclear if she had to withdraw because she was pregnant or because she was dismissed for lying. Menocal was removed from his role training and recruiting cadets — but Kiley, a former Fort Lauderdale police major, would bring him back to instruct certified law enforcement officers, male and female, in SWAT tactics, according to Menocal’s contracts with the academy.
Kiley hung up the phone when contacted for this story.
Menocal, a married father of two, was dismissed in November 2019 only after the Miami Herald informed college officials it was preparing to publish an investigation into long-standing allegations of sexual assault that had been lodged against him in 2015. A month after the Herald’s story, Menocal, 32, was indicted by federal prosecutors who said he used his badge to pressure two civilian women he had encountered, one a minor, for sex. A new alleged victim has since come forward.
While Hialeah Police Chief Sergio Velázquez says the academy cadet “fabricated” her story about the pregnancy, the Herald found significant evidence that Menocal did in fact have a sexual relationship with the student and then lied about it. Reporters reviewed audio recordings of detailed sworn testimony that three cadets and one instructor gave to Hialeah police internal affairs investigators and interviewed four sources with knowledge of the case.
At the time Menocal was serving as an instructor at the college, the FBI was investigating him for the alleged sexual assaults he committed while on duty in 2015. Velázquez has said he was aware of that FBI investigation and that Hialeah police cooperated with it.
The chief has not explained why he allowed Menocal to continue working on patrol or as an instructor who held sway over the futures of young female cadets at the police academy. Menocal began teaching at the college in 2013, working on a contract basis, according to his personnel file.
“I guarantee you that we did our due diligence and completely investigated,” Velázquez said at a November press conference addressing the Herald’s initial story. “Not only us but the Miami Dade [College] School of Justice.
“We don’t cover up,” he said.
The chief also said he provided the college with a “memo” discussing the incident. The city has not yet provided that memo, which would be a public record, despite multiple requests. The college said it did not receive any such memo from Hialeah police.
A written report by a Hialeah internal affairs detective determined that the allegations of a sexual relationship “could not be established” because the cadet refused to cooperate and had changed her story, noting she had made “false statements.”
The student “just wanted to put everything that happened in the past and forget about it,” the report stated. “[She] further said in [a] message that all the allegations against Sergeant Menocal were false.”
Velázquez ruled the complaint “unfounded” on Jan. 25, 2018.
Juan Mendieta, a spokesman for Miami Dade College, said the college played no role in the investigation of the pregnancy and was unaware the student had come forward.
“It is important to note the Hialeah Police Department never informed the college of any concerns nor issues,” Mendieta said. “We have no record of any cadet raising concerns about [Menocal] to college officials.
“There was no student complaint nor investigation,” Mendieta added when asked why Menocal was allowed to continue working at the academy after the pregnancy scandal.
Mendieta said an internal review of how the school handled the case found “the correct processes were followed in having Mr. Menocal removed from any recruitment role.” The review was initiated in November after questions from the Herald.
The Herald is not naming the student to protect her privacy. Through a family member, she declined to comment. The family member also said FBI agents contacted the woman but she did not wish to speak with them. The Miami Herald could not determine if she had the baby.
In December, Menocal was arrested by the FBI and charged with two civil-rights violations stemming from those alleged 2015 sexual assaults. One of the victims cited in the indictment was 17 years old. Menocal was fired from the department that same day and has pleaded not guilty.
His defense attorney, Michael Grieco, declined to comment for this story.
Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said academy officials should have filed a complaint as soon as the female cadet told an instructor that Menocal impregnated her.
“He was under investigation [for sexual assault allegations] over a long period of time and did not belong in a position of instructional responsibility,” said Haberfeld, author of “Critical Issues in Police Training,” who since 2001 has been involved in a special educational program for the New York City Police Department. “These are very serious charges. He was lucky not to be suspended without pay. Leaving him at the academy was, to me, negligence.
“He should have been reassigned to a desk job, dealing with paperwork,” she said. “No interactions with the community and no interactions with cadets.”
A ‘fabricated’ incident
In the weeks before the cadet revealed her pregnancy, she had shown her classmates flirty text messages she said she exchanged with Menocal.
“He wanted to meet up during the weekend to f--k,” one trainee told Hialeah police internal affairs investigators.
If she ever needed to miss early morning training sessions, all she had to do was text Menocal, she told another trainee. No one else got that kind of special treatment, the trainee said.
On Friday, Aug. 18, 2017, at the urging of her classmates, the pregnant cadet approached training adviser Rene Revilla, a Miami police officer, and told him she was carrying Menocal’s child, according to sworn testimony Revilla gave the next week to Hialeah internal affairs.
“She did make it a point to tell me ... that wherever this went and led to, she did not want to be in the same room or be seen [by Menocal] because she felt uncomfortable or intimidated,” he said.
Soon after Revilla’s meeting with the cadet, Menocal rang her cellphone. Revilla, still standing nearby, told her not to pick up. She ignored the call.
Menocal had already telephoned Revilla, saying he was hearing chatter from students about the scandal. “It’s all B.S.,” he said, according to Revilla’s testimony.
“I believe you need to fasten your seat belt,” Revilla replied. “There’s a roller coast ride coming.”
But on the following Monday, when the woman met with Revilla, Kiley, the school’s director, and another training adviser, she claimed she had made up the affair and the baby’s paternity.
“Nothing happened between me and Sgt. Menocal,” she said, according to Revilla’s audio statement. “It’s all been fabricated. It’s a lie.”
Revilla pushed back but the cadet stuck to her revised story.
Menocal also denied that he had done anything wrong.
Hialeah police investigated the pregnancy allegations after receiving a complaint from someone at the academy.
Internal affairs investigators took statements from the four police academy witnesses, including Revilla, but because the cadet did not want to cooperate, the report did not conclude Menocal had violated any departmental policies. The report was then turned over to the police chief, who allowed Menocal to continue as an instructor at the police academy on the Miami Dade College campus in North Miami.
It wasn’t the first scandal Menocal had survived. He was still teaching at the academy in 2017 even though four women, two of them minors, had told Hialeah police two years earlier that he sexually assaulted and harassed them. But state prosecutors decided not to charge him. And Velázquez, the chief, allowed Menocal to resume his career, giving him a merit raise, moving him back to the SWAT team and allowing him to resume working at the academy.
The School of Justice also took no action in 2015, although the case received significant public attention after one alleged victim gave interviews to local television news stations. During the pregnancy scandal in 2017, students at the school were familiar with the assault allegations against Menocal and questioned why he was working as an instructor, according to a former student.
The School of Justice trains more than 12,000 students every year, providing “state-certified training to private and public sector public safety professionals,” according to its promotional materials. It is an academic division of Miami Dade College. Students do not need to be assigned to the academy by a police department, although law enforcement agencies can contract with the school for training programs.
Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández has called the Herald “racist” and “anti-Cuban” for its coverage of the police department and Menocal.
A Hialeah police spokesman said Velázquez stood by his earlier comments that the cadet had fabricated the story.
“He further states that any insinuation to the contrary would be another example of a misdirected attack by the Herald concerning Hialeah,” said Lt. Eddie Rodriguez.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional public records from the city of Hialeah.
This story was originally published January 28, 2020 at 7:00 AM.
