HORRIFIC

Former NYPD Officer Alleges ‘Incalculable’ Number of Rapes by Fellow Officers

Maria Mendez claims her fellow officers force-fed her drugs, repeatedly raped her, and filmed the encounters to pass among themselves.

In a series of allegations that would stand out as grotesque even on Law and Order: SVU, a former New York City Police Department officer claims her fellow officers force-fed her drugs, repeatedly raped and sodomized her, and tormented her over five years without repercussions. Maria Mendez has accused two NYPD officers, one detective, and one FDNY firefighter of multiple rapes and of coercing her into ingesting oxycodone, ecstasy, and alcohol in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday. Mendez said in the complaint that the “incalculable” number of rapes she suffered, which allegedly began in 2014 at the hands of her partner, led to “physical deformities to her vagina and anus requiring surgical repair” as well as suicidal depression and PTSD. She also alleged she was often recorded against her will and that the videos were passed through her department, including to her captain. The alleged abuse led Mendez to quit the 32nd Precinct’s force in 2019, she says. Mendez alleges that when she brought her story to a female lieutenant, she was told to keep quiet and called “a slut,” and that after she was interviewed by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau in 2019, prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to take up her case.