Maleatra Montanez claims she was raped by officer Chester Thompson after she called police for help finding her daughter. (Photos by New York Daily News/Syracuse Police Department)
A Syracuse woman has filed a $7 million lawsuit against an officer who allegedly forced her to have sex with him in front of her newborn son last year.
Maleatra Montanez, 40, called to report her daughter missing on Valentine’s Day 2015. Officer Chester Thompson responded to the call and soon arrived at her home. According to her lawsuit, Montanez says Thompson’s sexual advances began almost immediately.
“When I opened the door, he told me that I was pretty,” Montanez told the New York Daily News.
In her deposition, Montanez stated that Thompson began commenting on her physical attributes, noting that her butt was big and lips “looked like it could hold…a penis.”
The lawsuit also reveals that the officer began rubbing his private parts, and at one point even directed Montanez to hang up the phone, as she was speaking with a family member about her missing daughter, Syracuse.com reports.
According to her sworn deposition obtained by the New York Daily News, that’s when Thompson exposed his penis and ordered her to perform oral sex.
“All I know is I said, ‘Whoa!'” Montanez recalled. “I noticed on his penis…he had a mark on his testicle and he had a mark on his penis…like a mole or a sore or something.”
Per the New York Daily News, the two were briefly interrupted by a neighbor who stopped by to help clean the apartment. But Montanez said the veteran officer answered the door and told the man to come back some other time because she was in the middle of filing a police report.
Thompson’s inappropriate sexual advances continued afterward and the mother of four says she pleaded through tears, telling the officer “we don’t have to do this.”
“And he asked me do I love my son,” Montanez testified. “So I had an idea of maybe what was getting ready to happen.”
She claims that Thompson then demanded she get a condom from the adjacent apartment, the New York Daily News reports, after which the officer forced her to face her infant son while she was raped from behind.
Montanez admits she thought about choking the officer to death but was afraid because he had a gun. Following the alleged rape, the Syracuse woman noted that Thompson repeatedly entreated her not to report him because he had a wife and kids, according to the New York Daily News.
But she did just that. Montanez went to the hospital the next day and reported the incident to the Syracuse Police Department.
Per Syrcause.com, Thompson was charged and convicted of official misconduct, a misdemeanor, and sentenced to three years’ probation. He had also been suspended from the department prior to his March 2015 arrest.
Thompson admitted to having sex with Montanez but claimed it was consensual, he wasn’t prosecuted for forcing her to perform the acts. According to prosecutor Jeremy Cali, an officer can’t be charged with rape if the alleged victim doesn’t verbally say “no,” isn’t in custody, or isn’t threatened physically or restrained.
Per Syracuse.com, the officer also confessed to having sex with two women while on duty: Montanez and another woman on three separate occasions.
Montanez was outraged that Thompson was able to escape jail time for his December 2015 misdemeanor conviction, the news site reports.
“I would like to have the city of Syracuse apologize to me and my son,” Montanez said. “And I would like for this never to happen again to anyone else.”
According to the New York Daily News, Montanez’s lawsuit includes Thompson and several higher ups in the Syracuse Police Department because they reportedly knew the officer had a past history of sexual misconduct.
“We’ve had information from several sources that this is not the first time that Chester Thompson has engaged in this type of malfeasance,” her civil lawyer, Ed Sivin, said. “And it appears that this may have been going on for a period of years. And that people high up in the Syracuse Police Department knew about it and didn’t take prompt remedial measures against him.”
The suit is seeking $5 million in compensation and $2 million for punitive damages, Syracuse.com reports.
