Grope suit OKd
Rape accuser said cop called her ‘favorite victim’
A FEDERAL JUDGE has given a green light to a civil suit against an NYPD officer accused of groping a rape victim after a Seattle pub crawl.
Officer Lukasz Skorzewski and former Lt. Adam Lamboy, who worked in the Manhattan Special Victims Division, traveled to Seattle in early July 2013 to investigate a woman’s claims that she’d been raped in a Union Square apartment that January.
The two cops then took the woman boozing for 10 hours on July 6 — one day after their initial interview — and convinced her to stay the night in their room at the Bellevue, Wash., Embassy Suites, she said in a lawsuit filed last year.
While she slept in Skorzewski’s bed and Skorzewski slept on the sofa, he crawled into the bed around 10 a.m., groped her for about half an hour, and aggressively tried to undress her — and then warned the New York City nursing student not to tell anyone about the incident, she alleges.
The 25-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld because of the nature of the allegations, charges that Skorzewski, 32, and Lamboy, 45, conspired against her and violated her constitutional right to bodily privacy and protection against sexual misconduct.
Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman threw out her conspiracy claim in a ruling Tuesday, but allowed her bodily privacy and sexual misconductbased claims to continue.
“The court made a well-reasoned decision,” Christopher Galiardo, who represents the woman, told the Daily News. “The facts of this case speak for themselves.”
The officers copped to departmental charges of prohibited conduct in the incident. They kept their jobs, but were hit with demotions, suspensions and transfers from Special Victims. Lamboy has since retired.
Skorzewski, who allegedly called the woman his “favorite victim,” filed a $2 million counter-suit against her earlier this year, claiming her description of the events to the press defamed him.
Skorzewski’s lawyer again denied the allegations against the officer, who still works for the NYPD.
“As the court clearly stated, this was a legal decision, not a decision on the merits of the case,” said the lawyer, Peter Brill. “We will continue to fight for Officer Skorzewski, whose conduct did not violate any law, state or federal.”
The NYPD referred a call for comment to the city Law Department.
“Our defense of claims brought against the city in this case should not be construed as excusing the behavior of these individuals,” the department said in a statement. “There exists no NYPD policy or practice which condones this type of conduct.”