Cadet said her trainer, a Hialeah cop, got her pregnant
A cadet at the Miami police academy said her trainer, Hialeah Police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr., got her pregnant. Her career ended. His went on as if nothing had happened.
When three female students at the Miami Dade College School of Justice noticed a classmate with a bulging belly, they asked her if she was pregnant.
Yes, the 22-year-old cadet told them — and the father was Hialeah Police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr., her training adviser at the prestigious law enforcement academy. Menocal knew about the pregnancy, she said.
The resulting scandal would end her fledgling career in law enforcement. His would continue as if nothing had happened.
The other cadets were well aware something was going on between the student and Menocal, a tall and muscular SWAT team member who led the prospective law enforcement officers through rigorous early morning drills and worked as a recruiter at the school for Hialeah police.
The student told her classmates that she and Menocal were exchanging flirty texts, three fellow cadets later told Hialeah Police Department
pledge, Berman said he was deviating from the norm to provide an update.
“So let me say that the Southern District of New York and the FBI have contacted Prince Andrew’s attorneys and requested to interview Prince Andrew, and to date Prince Andrew has provided zero cooperation,” Berman said.
The event was staged also to draw attention to a new law in New York that makes it easier for child abuse survivors to bring suit many years after the alleged abuse. In doing so, Berman encouraged other potential Epstein victims to come forward with an eye toward compensation from the Epstein estate, now being settled by his lawyers.
A prominent lawyer representing some of Epstein’s alleged victims has threatened to use subpoenas to compel testimony from Prince Andrew, and on Monday chided him for the lack of cooperation.
“Prince Andrew’s continued refusal to cooperate with authorities after acknowledging that he would be prepared to answer inquiries raises even more questions about the role he played in the international sex trafficking Jeffrey Epstein and others operated,” David Boies, chairman of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, said in a statement. “Prince Andrew should take most seriously a deeply held belief in this country that no one is above the law.”
British newspapers reported late last year that Scotland Yard had been engaged with the FBI in discussions about how to secure testimony from Prince Andrew. However, Berman provided no details about how and when the request to the prince’s lawyers was conveyed.
Typically, any Justice Department official seeking legal assistance from another country makes that request through diplomatic channels via the State Department. It is unclear if that happened in this case. Officials from the State Department, FBI, British Embassy in Washington and Berman’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department,
which is investigating Epstein’s death at the direction of Attorney General William Barr, referred inquiries back to Berman’s office.
Prince Andrew, who is also known as the Duke of York, stepped down from his official royal duties last November following a disastrous television interview with the BBC in which he expressed little sympathy for Epstein’s victims and could not explain a photo taken in 2001 with his arm around one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre.
The surprise event from Berman comes after U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George brought a multi-count indictment on Jan. 15 against the Epstein estate, alleging in a civil enforcement action that the U.S. commonwealth is entitled to seize Epstein’s two private islands, worth millions, because of sexual abuse he perpetrated on underage victims there. The indictment alleged Epstein continued to prey on girls as young as 12 as recently as 2018.
That action itself came on the heels of a 61-page report on Jan. 10 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, detailing how faculty and administrators at the prestigious university maintained personal and financial relations with Epstein even after a 2008 deal that allowed him to escape serious punishment by pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
The Berman announcement also comes as speculation grows into the whereabouts of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend and longtime business associate who his victims allege served as a madam who procured underage girls to feed his predilections. Her whereabouts have been a mystery since immediately after Epstein’s jail cell hanging, which was termed a suicide, although some — including Epstein’s brother — have expressed doubts about that finding.
She figures into questions the FBI hopes to ask Prince Andrew because Giuffre claims she was trafficked to the prince by Epstein. Specifically, she alleges that while riding in a car she was instructed by Maxwell to do for Prince Andrew what she did for Epstein. The prince’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, in 2011 issued a public apology for borrowing $9,000 from Epstein, via Prince Andrew, a relatively paltry amount given his stated fortune at time of death exceeded $550 million.
Kevin G. Hall: 202-383-6038, @KevinGHall