2 Oakland cops plead not guilty
Two more Oakland police officers were arraigned Friday on sex-crime charges that critics say fit a pattern of inappropriate behavior that has embroiled law enforcement agencies across the Bay Area and outraged community leaders.
Officer Giovanni LoVerde, 33, was charged with felony oral copulation with a minor, a case that is connected to an extensive police misconduct investigation involving a sexually exploited 19year-old Richmond woman. Officer Ryan Walterhouse, 26, who was arrested earlier this week, was hit with two felony counts of obstruction of justice and one count of engaging in prostitution.
Both men, who remain employed by the Oakland Police Department, pleaded not guilty to the charges in the Hayward Hall of Justice and were ordered to cut off all communication with the women with
whom they allegedly had inappropriate contact.
Alameda County prosecutors have accused seven current and former East Bay law enforcement officials, including LoVerde, of crimes related to contact they had with the teenager, whose mother is an Oakland police dispatcher.
Investigators said that Walterhouse, who is engaged, had paid a different woman — a prostitute — for sex Oct. 1 in a Castro Valley motel and twice warned her about undercover prostitution stings.
Oakland officials said the allegations against Walterhouse have no connection with the earlier scandal, but critics both inside and outside City Hall have said the cases — most of which involve recent recruits to the Police Department amid an expeditious hiring push — were part of the same troubling pattern. The concerns prompted the city to conduct an audit of its hiring practices and significantly decrease the number of officers in its incoming police academy.
“This new case is a classic example of an officer engaging in conduct that clearly was improper and illegal and surprisingly occurring after so much attention has been given to the other cases,” said John Burris, a prominent civil rights lawyer, who this week took over as the lead attorney representing the young woman at the center of the scandal.
Outside court, Michael Cardoza — the attorney representing both LoVerde and Walterhouse — offered a fiery defense for the men, saying the charges were false and possibly politically motivated.
He said LoVerde had never met the young woman, who formerly went by the alias Celeste Guap but now goes by her real first name, Jasmine. She told The Chronicle she had sexual relations with nearly 30 Bay Area officers and sheriff ’s deputies.
LoVerde, who married his high school sweetheart and has two children, is accused of engaging in oral copulation with the teenager in July 2015 at an apartment entryway near Lake Merritt in Oakland.
“This is a very political case in this county, and I really believe there are politics involved here,” Cardoza told reporters. “The police officers are targets nowadays, even with a district attorney’s office.”
Though Cardoza said he wasn’t attacking the young woman, he implied that she lied and only came forward for financial gain. Her attorneys have filed claims against several Bay Area cities and counties seeking tens of millions of dollars.
LoVerde was ordered to return to court for a pretrial hearing Dec. 5 and Walterhouse Dec. 7.