3 more officers charged in sex scandal

2 Oakland cops, Contra Costa deputy accused of exploiting teen sexually

Three more officers were charged Monday with crimes ranging from having sex with a minor to obstructing justice in connection with the wideranging scandal involving a sexually exploited teenager that has roiled police departments throughout the Bay Area over the past year.

According to papers filed in Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland police Officer Brian Bunton warned the teenager, who now goes by the name Jasmine, in March that a sting was about to occur on hooker-heavy International Boulevard in Oakland.

Bunton, 40, who went by the name “Superman” on the Internet, then received sex in exchange for his warning, the charges allege.

Bunton is also accused of encouraging Jasmine to work as a prostitute and telling her she “needed a better manager” when she told him she was not making as much money as she wanted.

Fellow Oakland police Officer Giovanni Loverde, 33, is accused of receiving oral sex from Jasmine near Lake Merritt in July 2015. And former Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricardo Perez, 28, is charged with having sexual intercourse with Jasmine “around June or July 2015” while parked near Fish Ranch Road in the Oakland hills.

Jasmine, who has also used the name Celeste Guap, is 19 but was younger than the legal consent age of 18 when all of the alleged offenses occurred.

The charges follow those filed Friday against an Oakland police sergeant and a former Livermore police officer accusing them of also having sex with Jasmine.

The teenager has told The Chronicle she had sex with

about 29 officers in the Bay Area over the past two years, and earlier this month the Alameda County district attorney’s office said it would file charges against seven officers from three different departments.

Monday’s charges mean there are still counts left to be lodged against two Oakland police officers. Those should be coming soon, said district attorney spokeswoman Rebecca Richardson.

“We’re going through systematically and filing as we go,” she said.

Bunton faces one felony count of obstructing justice and one misdemeanor count of prostitution. He is to be arraigned on Friday.

Loverde is charged with one felony count of sex with a minor and one misdemeanor count of lewd conduct in public. Perez faces a felony count of oral copulation with a minor and two misdemeanor counts of lewd conduct in public. Both are to be arraigned Sept. 30.

Calls to attorneys for the three defendants were not returned.