OAKLAND, Calif. _ A monthslong investigation of a scandal that rocked the Oakland Police Department came to a head Friday when the Alameda County district attorney's office announced criminal charges against seven law enforcement officers in connection with claims that officers had sex with a teenage woman.
Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley said her office was filing a variety of charges, including sex offenses and obstruction of justice against current and former Oakland police officers as well as former employees of the Livermore Police Department and the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department.
The decision marks the latest chapter in a controversy that has threatened the Oakland Police Department's hopes of ending 13 years of federal oversight and caused a major shakeup in the agency's command staff.
O'Malley said her office conducted an exhaustive investigation into the allegations.
"We left no stone unturned," she said.
Three police executives have been removed from their posts, four officers have been fired and seven others suspended in the months after a 19-year-old Richmond woman claimed in a television news interview that she had sex with more than a dozen Oakland police officers. Some of the encounters happened in exchange for information about planned prostitution raids, she has alleged, and others occurred when she was underage.
The scandal soon widened, as the woman claimed she also had sex or other inappropriate contact with officers from the Richmond Police Department, Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, Livermore Police Department and Alameda County Sheriff's Office.
An Alameda County district attorney's investigator was also fired earlier this year for having inappropriate communications with the woman. And a Livermore police officer resigned as part of the scandal, according to reports published earlier this week.
While the woman's name has been widely publicized, the Los Angeles Times has not published her identity because she may be a sex crime victim.
So far, no officers have faced criminal charges as a result of the scandal. An Alameda County sheriff's spokesman told the Times earlier this year that an internal review showed no deputies had committed illegal acts or violated department policy in relation to the scandal. An assistant Richmond Police chief also told the Times earlier this year that an investigation into the woman's claims did not reveal evidence that city officers had sex with the woman when she was underage.
Earlier this year, Contra Costa County prosecutors declined to charge former Oakland Police Officer Teryl Smith after he had been accused of attempting to forcibly sodomize the woman. Smith resigned months ago.
On Thursday, Contra Costa County's chief assistant district attorney, John McMaster, told the Times his office had not been presented with any cases that it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt in connection with the woman's claims. He would not say if the agency had any active criminal investigations into the woman's allegations, or how many cases had been presented to his office.
While the scandal did not gain national attention until June, the Police Department opened its internal review in September 2015 after an Oakland officer took his own life.
In a suicide note, Brendan O'Brien said he and as many as four other officers may have been engaged in sexual relationships with the young woman. In separate interviews, the woman has claimed that she first met O'Brien along International Boulevard, a stretch of Oakland's troubled Fruitvale neighborhood that is notorious for the exploitation of young sex trafficking victims.
The note sparked a yearlong inquiry and thrust Oakland into a national debate on police accountability. Investigators with the department's internal affairs unit reviewed 78,000 pages of social media posts and conversations and more than 28,000 text messages, officials said. Detectives also interviewed 50 witnesses as part of the inquiry, and interviewed the woman 11 times.
The investigation led Oakland police officials to notify several other East Bay law enforcement agencies about possible officer misconduct involving the woman.
As the scandal broke, Police Chief Sean Whent stepped down in June. Whent, who had been credited with bringing the department out of the shadow of the 2003 brutality scandal that led to the implementation of a federal monitor, resigned the same weekend the woman's TV news interview aired.
While Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has repeatedly referred to Whent's resignation as a "personal choice," several sources have told the Times that his departure was tied to the scandal. John Burris, the attorney who negotiated the settlement that placed the department under a federal monitor and is briefed on police matters, said Whent failed to notify the monitor of the details of O'Brien's suicide note for several months.
Whent also rejected recommendations for discipline against some of the officers involved, according to Burris. Repeated attempts to contact Whent have been unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, questions loom about how authorities have treated the woman at the center of the scandal.
Earlier this year, she was transported from the Bay Area to a voluntary rehabilitation facility in Florida with funds provided by the California Victims Compensation Board, according to McMaster, the Contra Costa County prosecutor. McMaster said the woman applied for help through a victims advocate working for the district attorney's office who was based at the headquarters of the Richmond Police Department, one of the agencies whose officers she accused of misconduct.
An email sent Thursday asking for comment from a spokeswoman for the compensation board was not returned. Lt. Felix Tan, a Richmond police spokesman, said Thursday it would be "irresponsible" and "illegal" to comment on the matter.
Many have asked why the key witness in a widespread police misconduct case was sent out of state, but McMaster scoffed at the idea that she was "spirited away," saying she could easily be brought back to California with a subpoena.
Still, McMaster said it was unlikely that Alameda County prosecutors were consulted about the move. A spokeswoman for the Alameda County district attorney's office declined to comment on the matter Thursday.
On Aug. 29, the woman was arrested and charged with aggravated battery in Florida after she allegedly bit a security guard at the rehabilitation facility in Stuart, Fla., according to an arrest report filed by the Martin County Sheriff's Office.
Police were called to the facility after the woman became physically combative with several staff members. In interviews with sheriff's deputies, she repeatedly discussed her past drug abuse and sexual encounters with police officers, and later attempted to solicit sex from the deputies, according to the report.
An attorney representing the woman could not be reached for comment.
At a news conference Wednesday, Oakland's mayor said she was displeased by the decision to move the woman to Florida, saying city officials had offered her help through local rehabilitation programs.
