Jasmine Campbell claims she was arrested and charged on bogus claims after refusing the officer’s advances. (Image courtesy of Robert Mecca)
An NYPD cop offered to let a Brooklyn woman go after a pot possession bust if she agreed to lift her blouse and expose her breasts, the woman’s lawyer said.
In a letter addressed to the city Thursday, Jan. 4, attorney Lawrence LaBrew demanded a settlement for his client Jasmine Campbell, who was pulled over in East New York in 2014, the New York Daily News reported. Campbell alleged that she was mistreated and harassed by Officer Javier Munoz during their encounter. She said when she refused his advances, he arrested her for criminal weed possession and resisting arrest.
“He kept looking down at my chest,” Campbell told the New York Post this week. He asked me, ‘Do you have anything underneath your shirt?’ I said, ‘No.’ ”
“I felt embarrassed,” she added. [Munoz] leaned in further and asked, ‘Do you wanna show me something?’ He said that with a smirk on his face.”
Campbell, 25, claimed the other officers began laughing at her when she stepped out of the car with her hands raised. One of them allegedly commented, “What, are you trying to give us a hug?” The aspiring lawyer said she wound up missing her college exam her senior year after spending a night behind bars. She was booked into jail and later denied bond, despite her friend telling the cops the weed was his.
“The arrest and prosecution of Ms. Campbell was a sham,” LaBrew said. “She was arrested because she would not show Police Officer Munoz her breasts.”
Campbell’s case was ultimately dismissed after a few court appearances, according to the newspaper. Still, the Brooklyn woman said the entire experience was humiliating. She filed a $2 million suit against the city and Munoz in 2016, according to the Post. The city offered to settle the case for $2,500 on Thursday but her lawyer said they won’t be considering it.
The newspaper noted that Campbell didn’t mention the officer’s alleged misconduct in her initial complaint, but disclosed it in the settlement demand letter.
Since the incident, Campbell said she’s been stopped by other officers who’ve also been sexually inappropriate towards her.
“It’s a constant thing going on in New York with the cops that they are just using their badges to, I guess, sexually harass women,” she said. “That is why I am so glad to be going to law school in Florida. I don’t even want to live here anymore.”
There’s no word whether Munoz will face disciplinary action.
