A District of Columbia cop has been arrested for armed robbery, assault, prostitution, and several sexual offenses after paying a 15-year-old girl for sex and then stealing the money back at gunpoint afterward. The officer, Chukwuemeka Ekwonna, had been with the D.C. Metropolitan Police for a little over a year. According to police reports, Ekwonna, 27, met the girl in January on the app Tagged and she agreed to meet him in his car on Jan 9, for sex in exchange for $80. She said she met Ekwonna in the Glen Burnie area of northern Anne Arundel County, near Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport south of Baltimore.
After paying her the $80, Ekwonna sex with the minor in his car, but after having sex with her, he allegedly threatened her with a gun and demanded she give his money back, which she did and fled.
Police in Anne Arundel County said the alleged incident first came to the attention of authorities on March 13 when the girl told counselors with the Department of Social Services that she might be involved in a case of human trafficking. The case was assigned to a task force that tracks trafficking cases and includes a detective with the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
The D.C. police Internal Affairs Division and cops from Anne Arundel County (where the meetup took place) started investigating, and Ekwonna was initially suspended but eventually fired on Friday April 7th.
Arundel County police state that their:
"investigation revealed the juvenile female was acting on her own and was not a victim of human trafficking, however she is not being charged for any criminal investigation related to this case."But despite the fact that she did it voluntarily, legally, because she is a minor, she cant get in trouble with the law.
Under US federal law, anyone engaging in prostitution before their 18th birthday is defined as a child and anyone who solicits someone under 18 for paid sex is committing the federal crime of sex trafficking of children, regardless of whether they know the minor's real age or not.
Ekwonna was arrested on two counts of sexual offenses in the third degree (a category which includes adults having sex with teenagers), several handgun-related offenses, and one count each of robbery, armed robbery, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and prostitution.
His victim was able to identify him from photographs, police said.
Chukwuemeka Ekwonna of Glenn Dale in Prince George’s County, was ordered detained Friday until his next court hearing, which has not yet been set.
Ekwonna had previously worked with the D.C. Department of Corrections. He was sued by an inmate who alleged he beat him at the D.C. jail. The lawsuit was pending in federal court when Ekwonna applied and was accepted to the police force; the District settled the claim for $20,000 in February, 2017 according to court records and a spokesman for the D.C. attorney general’s office.
Acting D.C. police chief Peter Newsham, said the department is reviewing the circumstances under which the Ekwonna was hired. He said the lawsuit over the alleged Corrections Department incident “is something that should have been considered. I don’t know if it was or it wasn’t, but we will look into that.” Of the allegations filed against Ekwonna, the police chief said, “We find them to be a disgrace to the uniform and the badge.”
Source: Washington Post
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