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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Nude Photos May Prompt Suit
By Vic Vela
Journal Staff Writer
Nude photographs of an alleged domestic violence victim were taken from the woman's home four years ago by Santa Fe cops and displayed inside police headquarters for their own “sexual gratification,” according to attorneys for the woman.
The allegations against the city of Santa Fe and police are detailed in a tort claim notice, which was obtained by the Journal on Monday. A potential lawsuit awaits resolution of a police internal affairs investigation.
The 28-year-old woman reported to police in 2006 that her husband had beaten her after she found what she believed to be child pornography on a computer at the couple's home, according to a tort claim notice filed against the city in 2008 by Santa Fe attorneys Mark Donatelli and John Day.
After the husband was arrested, police confiscated computers, as well as nude photos of the woman that did not depict child porn. Several months later, the woman found out that the cops were “publicly displaying nude photos of her around the department premises in a lewd and lascivious manner for the officers' own sexual gratification,” according to the document.
“If you're a woman who is a crime victim, you ought to be concerned,” Day told the Journal on Monday. “Women who are crime victims shouldn't have to be revictimized by the lewd displays of their personal photos.”
Police Chief Aric Wheeler, who was not chief at the time of the alleged police wrongdoing, would not comment on the matter but did say it continues to be investigated internally.
Wheeler would not say which officers were allegedly involved. Neither would Day, who also would not say how many officers were involved.
Day said he will wait to make his next move — possibly a lawsuit — once the internal affairs investigation is completed.
According to the tort claim notice sent to Mayor David Coss and former City Attorney Frank Katz on July 16, 2008:
The woman confronted her husband over a child porn Web site she came across on the couple's computer while paying bills. They began to argue and the man “began to physically attack and batter her.”
When police arrived, the woman told officers about the porn. After they arrested her husband on a domestic violence charge, they obtained a search warrant for computers in the house. Along with the computers, officers confiscated nude pictures of the woman that had been shot by her husband. The cops returned the next day and returned the photos to the woman.
The child porn case was handed off to the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, which found “inconclusive” evidence of child porn.
But in April 2008, a source within SFPD informed the woman that officers were “displaying nude photographs (of her) ... in and around the premises of Santa Fe Police Department.”
The photos were being displayed “... solely for the purposes of demeaning, slandering, defaming and ridiculing (the woman), with the goal of sexual gratification of these police officers and others.”
“(The victim) sought protection from one pervert who liked child pornography,” the tort claim states. “Instead of receiving protection, however, she was once again victimized, this time by other apparent perverts at the Santa Fe Police Department.”
The Journal has learned that the internal affairs investigation was being handled by Lt. Stephen Ryan, but was stalled after Ryan was placed on administrative leave after he was arrested last year on a DWI charge.
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