NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — A police sergeant who is married to a New York City anchorwoman was charged Wednesday with the forcible rape of a 17-year-old girl.
New Rochelle Sgt. David Rodriguez, 36, allegedly returned to the girl’s home and raped her Feb. 9, just hours after he and three officers had arrested her 35-year-old live-in boyfriend on a domestic violence charge.
The nine-year police veteran pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in City Court, agreed to an order of protection for the girl, then posted $25,000 bail. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.
His wife, Darlene Rodriguez, anchorwoman of WNBC-TV’s “Today in New York,” was in tears outside the courtroom before the arraignment. But she left the courthouse dry-eyed with her husband and said, “I’m here to support my husband. I believe in him. I love him. He’s innocent 100 percent.”
David Rodriguez did not speak, but his attorney, Stephen Worth, said the charge was false, the investigation was slipshod and the girl “has a number of motives to make up a false allegation.” He did not elaborate.
Yes, the girl has almost as many motives to cry rape as Rodriguez has for crying “not rape!” and having his high priced lawyer claim this poor, abused teenage girl was a liar. This is a teenage girl who was living not with a loving supportive family but a wife beating sadist who is almost 20 years her senior. What sort of circumstances would lead to that living arrangement? And who would take advantage of that?
His defense is shot down by this report in a local Westchester paper:
The girl did not immediately report that she was raped and did not bring it up when she tried to get the charges against her boyfriend dropped.
After the weekend, she went to the district attorney’s office at New Rochelle City Court, where she was referred to the Domestic Violence Bureau. There, she told an adviser that she relies on her boyfriend for support and he was the father of her child and she wanted him home.
She also mentioned that she did not want the officer to come back.
When questioned about what she meant, she said one of the arresting officers had returned and forced her to have sex, authorities said. She did not know his name and said she never met him before that night. Authorities determined she was talking about Rodriguez based on a general description.
Understand that the girl didn’t try to use a rape charge to save her boyfriend, her only interest was in trying to ensure that this animal who forced himself on her at her most vulnerable wasn’t coming back.
The report above implies the police basically had to drag it out of her. It also illustrates an important point about the victim. She’s used to being abused. She wants her abusive boyfriend back home. She’s a lost and lonely soul, a victim that predators like her boyfriend and Rodriguez could smell a mile away.
There is no doubt that Rodriguez had sex with her because the victim rightly testified that this swine shaves his pubic area, something many men who are under endowed do. Even if we were to believe that the sex was consensual, it is beyond despicable for a man to take advantage of a child who is being abused to sate his perverse desires.
Even if it were the case that the girl wanted to have sex with a stranger after having been threatened and assaulted by the father of her children, what kind of monster takes advantage of that rather than trying to help her out of a bad situation?
Rodriguez is the husband of Today in New York co-anchor Darlene Rodriguez who’s standing by her man. For now. But as the evidence piles up this poor woman and her children will be put through the wringer. I feel sorry for her, but not as sorry as I do for the 17 year old girl who was, in the course of one horrible day, battered by the man she loves and then violated by the man who she was supposed to be able to trust.
The worst part of the story is that from what slight glimpse into the life of the victim she has neither the options not inclination to pull herself out of a living hell. When this case is over she’ll be in the same spot, or worse, unless she can find some way to get out of New York and the pernicious environment of immorality that breeds men like Rodriguez and the boyfriend of the victim.