Two NYPD cops were hauled into court Monday to face charges of raping a cuffed 18-year-old female suspect in a police van — allegedly telling their victim they were “freaks.”
Married Brooklyn Officer Richard Hall was at the wheel of the Dodge Caravan as his partner, Eddie Martins, raped the victim in the backseat — but he caught the action by watching through the rear-view mirror, prosecutors said. Hall then took his turn forcing the woman to perform oral sex, they said.
Acting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez ripped the defendants after the arraignment for trying to claim that the attack was really consensual sex and discredit the victim over her tweets.
“To think that these are grown men in a position of power, who are blaming this on an 18-year-old girl, speaks in my opinion to desperation,” he said.
The two cops — who have already been stripped of their badges and guns and suspended without pay — pleaded “not guilty” to the 50-count indictment against them Monday.
The pair appeared stoic in court, both wearing dark blue suits. No family or police union members appeared present.
Martins and Hall are refuting all of the charges against them — which also include bribery, coercion and official misconduct allegations — stemming from the disturbing Sept. 15 incident that Gonzalez called “conduct that boggles the mind.”
Martins raped the victim, who goes by “Anna Chambers,” and both men forced her to perform oral sex on them in exchange for letting her walk free after they found marijuana and painkillers in her car, according to her lawyer, Michael David.
The defense is calling the prosecution’s account “schizophrenic” because the men are charged with both forcible rape and bribery — which the defense claims are mutually exclusive because bribery implies an agreed-upon arrangement.
“Which is it? In which these two men grotesquely violated this woman? Or was it quid pro quo? Shows me that the DA is not fully invested in the accuser’s account either,” said Martins’ lawyer, Mark Bederow.
But prosecutors say the defendants’ victim-blaming is grasping at straws.
“It’s shocking, it’s unfortunate that they could go ahead and blame a teenager for their clients’ acts,” Gonzalez told reporters.
The plainclothes narcotics officers, who worked in Brooklyn South, left their post at a buy-and-bust operation Sept. 15 without approval to cruise around Calvert Vaux Park, where they pulled over an Infinity Coupe with Chambers driving and two male passengers, according to the Brooklyn DA.
The teen said she needed to adjust her bra because of a body piercing, but the cops claimed they thought she was hiding something and requested she pull out her breasts, which she did, according to prosecutor Frank DeGaetano.
Then the officers made all three get out of the car while they searched it, eventually finding pot in a center console. Inside Chambers’s purse, they found marijuana and two Klonopin pills.
Martins and Hall told the girl they would issue a desk-appearance ticket — a summons in lieu of an arrest — but they cuffed her and put her into their Dodge Caravan, instructing the friends that they could pick her up at the 60th Precinct three hours later, DeGaetano said.
In the van, Martins told Chambers to call her pals and tell them not to tail the van — but since her handcuffs prevented her from reaching her phone, Martins dialed the friends from his own phone, first punching in *67 so his number would not appear on caller ID, DeGaetano claimed.
Then Martins told her that he and Hall, a married father of two, were “freaks” and asked what she would do to get out of the arrest, according to DeGaetano.
With Hall driving, Martins climbed into the back seat and allegedly forced her to perform oral sex. Then, he turned her around, pulled down her pants and raped her, the prosecutor said.
“As martins penetrated the complainant, she could see Hall watching her in the rearview mirror,” DeGaetano said.
The pair drove her all the way to Bay Ridge — outside the 60th Precinct and several miles from the buy-and-bust operation they abandoned — before swapping places, the prosecutor said.
With Martins now at the wheel, Hall climbed in the back of the van and forced Chambers to perform oral sex on him, the lawyer said.
When they dropped her off at the 60th Precinct back in Coney Island, one of the cops handed her the Klonopin back and told her to “keep her mouth shut,” DeGaetano said.
Martins and Hall, who work as narcotics officers in south Brooklyn, could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of the top charge.
Their DNA matched genetic material recovered from the victim in a rape kit, sources previously told The Post.
But the defense claims Chambers’s DNA was absent from the cuffs — and she lacked the physical signs of trauma associated with being cuffed and rough sex, suggesting she was a willing partner.
“There’s nothing that indicated vaginal tearing, scarring bruising of the like,” said Hall attorney John Arlia.
“Where’s the DNA on the handcuffs?” added Bederow.
Both cops have claimed the encounter was consensual, and have since started attacking the Chambers’s credibility based on her social media.
“She has posted Instagram videos of herself using drugs and rapping in her ‘Fi5ty Milli’ persona about the case while joking about the millions that will be ‘in her bank account,” the officer’s lawyers, Arlia and Bederow, wrote in a letter obtained by The Post to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
Still, Gonzalez said he plans to look into the cops’ past and is asking other victims to com forward.
“We’re gonna take a look at these officers and see if there are any other possible survivors of their misconduct out there. I would encourage anyone to come forward,” he said.
Chambers was absent the arrangement, according to her lawyer who said she didn’t know it was going down and wouldn’t have been there had she known.
Michael David, Anna Chambers’ attorney, said he and his client had no idea the two detectives were being indicted Monday, but that she wouldn’t have shown up to watch.
“She doesn’t want to see them,” David said. “They’re a public danger. Anytime she sees the police she’s frightened. She’s scared they’re going to come back and do it to her again.”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill has previously said the detectives will “pay the price” if the rape allegations are true.
The department’s information office put out a bulletin Monday alerting the media of arrest and charges.
Michael Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association, pointed out that the cops weren’t being represented by union attorneys.
“The DEA has no comment other than to say the officers involved are represented by private counsel and like everyone else, they have a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise,” he said.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun ordered the men held on bail, and Ira Judelson posted $150,000 for Martins and $75,000 for Hall. They left court without saying anything.
“We dispute the entire specific allegations related to a forcible attack,” attorney Bederow said as he left court.
Martins and Hall are expected to return to court Jan. 18.
Additional reporting by Tina Moore