Fairfax County Police Watch: I've been saying this for a decade now, the Fairfax County Police are corrupt (part1)

Suit: Police officers protected sex trafficking ring in exchange for free sex

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by Matthew Barakat/NBC Washington

A federal lawsuit filed by a prominent civil rights attorney alleges that police officers in Fairfax County protected a sex trafficking ring in Northern Virginia in exchange for free sex from the trafficked women.

The lawsuit also names former Fairfax County Police Chief Ed Roessler as a defendant, alleging that he helped cover up for the officers when another detective's work threatened to expose their wrongdoing.

The suit was filed on behalf of a Costa Rican woman identified in the lawsuit only as “Jane Doe.” It says the officers would tip off the trafficking ring to suspend its online advertisements in advance of sting operations run by police.

Victor Glasberg, the lawyer who filed the suit on the Costa Rican woman's behalf, said in an interview police have essentially corroborated elements of the woman's allegations by providing him the names of the officers involved in the alleged misconduct.

When Glasberg first filed the lawsuit in October, he did not know the identities of the officers who were allegedly involved, because his client was never able to learn their names. But he obtained a court order requiring the police department to identify the officers described in the complaint.

Police responded with two names: Michael O. Barbazette of Manassas and Jason J. Mardocco of Gainesville. Neither officer remains on the force.

Glasberg amended his lawsuit last week to include the officers' identities.

Calls and an email to numbers and an address associated with Barbazette went unanswered. Calls and an email to numbers and an address associated with Mardocco were not returned. Neither has a lawyer listed in court records.

Glasberg said he tried for months to negotiate with the county to avoid filing a lawsuit, because he believes a trial will be an emotional burden for his client. While he's seeking a monetary settlement for his client, Glasberg said his primary effort in negotiations was to ensure some level of accountability for the officers, but his negotiations were unsuccessful.

“I begged the county to resolve this without litigation. I said, 'Let's get some accountability here,'" he said. “In the end, they told me to go pound sand. ... This lawsuit is going to be difficult for my client, but it's going to be a whole lot more difficult for the county.”

Glasberg's amended lawsuit also includes allegations from a former Fairfax police detective, who says his efforts to investigate sex trafficking were thwarted by Barbazette, who was a sergeant and his supervisor.

As the detective, William Woolf, pressed his efforts to investigate, he said he was threatened by high-ranking officers. He said he even received a call from Roessler, whose voice he recognized even though he did not identify himself, saying, "I need to make sure you’re willing to play ball,” according to the lawsuit.

Roessler resigned as chief earlier this year. During his time as chief, Roessler received praise from politicians and activists for his efforts at transparency and his willingness to support criminal charges against officers accused of wrongdoing. But officers on the force overwhelmingly supported no-confidence votes against him conducted by police unions.

Calls and an email to numbers and an address associated with Roessler were unanswered or disconnected.

According to the lawsuit, the Costa Rican woman was recruited in her native country to come to the U.S. and work as an escort, which she was told involved going on dates with wealthy men but would entail prostitution.

But when she arrived in the U.S. in late 2010, the woman who ran the trafficking ring, Hazel Sanchez Cerdas, took her passport and forced her to engage in commercial sex. When the woman said she wanted to leave, Sanchez alternately threatened to harm the woman's family in Costa Rica or tell the family she was a prostitute, according to the lawsuit.

Sanchez pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to running the prostitution ring and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Prosecutors in that case said women in Sanchez's operation were required to have sex with up to 17 customers a day, and instructed to comply with requests even for particularly humiliating or dangerous sex acts.

There was debate during the case about the degree to which women were coerced, and defense lawyers argued that the victims had incentives to lie about how they were treated. But prosecutors argued that women did indeed have their passports confiscated and were threatened if they talked about leaving.

Sanchez's lawyer said in court papers that trafficking ring operated from 2010 through 2012, but in the civil lawsuit and in an FBI affidavit, the Costa Rican woman said she was coerced into working for Sanchez through 2015.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.