2 LAPD Officers Suspected of 5-Year Forced Sex Plot

Janet Kwak (NBC) | Jan 4, 2013

Two Los Angeles police officers are accused of luring women into unmarked cars and forcing them to have sex in a scheme that spanned five years, according to court records that show internal affairs detectives from the LAPD are investigating the allegations.

Officers Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols, who until recently worked together as narcotics officers in the department’s Hollywood Division, would threaten women with jail to get them into a car and drive them to a secluded area where one of the officers would demand sex with them while the other stood watch, according to a search warrant obtained by the detectives.

Investigators had planned to surprise the officers with an operation next week, but one of the women filed a lawsuit and the probe had to be accelerated, police officials said. The officers’ computers and phones were being seized on Thursday.

Police Chief Charlie Beck emphasized that the matter was still under investigation, but said he was “saddened by the allegations.”

“If they are true, it would be horrific,” the chief told the Los Angeles Times.

Investigators have identified four different women who the men had arrested or used as informants that subsequently came forward with the allegations independently.

An attorney for one of the plaintiffs, Dennis Chang, said his client was offered an early release in exchange for assisting LAPD with undercover drug arrests, but that working relationship changed within a few months.