Seven Bay Area law enforcement officers will be charged with sex offenses and other crimes in a scandal that has rocked the Oakland Police Department, threatening its hopes of ending 13 years of federal oversight and causing a major shake-up in its command staff.
The plan to charge the officers was announced Friday by Alameda County Dist. Atty. Nancy E. O’Malley, who said she could not file the charges until the teenage woman at the center of the scandal returns to California after being sent to a rehabilitation program in Florida by another agency.
“Anyone, particularly in a position of authority, who engages in sexual exploitation or inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor or a young adult will be held accountable if we have the evidence,” O’Malley said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re a police officer, a doctor, a probation officer, or a lawyer or a judge.”
Two law enforcement officers — Giovani LoVerde of the Oakland Police Department and Ricardo Perez, who has resigned from the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department — will be charged with felony oral copulation with a minor, O’Malley said. Perez will also be charged with two counts of engaging in a lewd act.
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