Sex, Cops and Videotape: Girl Claims Abuse

May 29, 2008 — -- In the leafy New York City bedroom community of Harrison, N.Y., typical interactions between residents and police consist of Mercedes sedans getting pulled over for speeding.

But in recent years, the placid atmosphere of the town, home to designer Kenneth Cole, Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain and Knicks guard Stephon Marbury, has been shattered by allegations of brutality, sexual abuse and fraud perpetrated by police officers.

The most recent alleged incident, which prompted a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing a veteran officer of sexually abusing a girl and forcing her to watch a sex video featuring her, has led the mayor to call an emergency session and demand the appointment of an independent monitor.

On May 17, Joseph Porto, 21, and his girlfriend, 18, claim that an officer raiding his family's home in search of marijuana fondled the then-16-year-old girl's buttocks and "placed both of his hands on [her] breasts and massaged them," according to court documents.

Detective Richard Light did this "solely for the purpose of his own sexual gratification and with the intention of both degrading and sexually abusing" the girl, says the complaint.

After Capt. Anthony Marraccini searched a bedroom and found a camcorder containing a video of the girl at age 15 having sex, three officers forced her to watch the tape with them as they mocked her, according to the complaint.

Light threatened her, saying, "I should beat your a-- for this. I hope your parents beat your a--. If someone from your house calls the cops, I will tell the cops to delay any response for 45 minutes," court documents state.

The officers took the camcorder back to the station house with them and played the video close enough to Porto's jail cell so that the young man could hear the audio while the officers laughed and made references to his girlfriend, according to the complaint.

In the lawsuit, the unidentified girl named "Jane Doe" claims that she suffered extreme emotional upset, anxiety, public humiliation, sexual abuse, among other things. She, as well as Porto, seek unspecified damages.