Two off-duty NYPD cops were arrested Tuesday morning for allegedly sexually assaulting an extremely intoxicated woman while she was passed out in the Bronx over the summer.
The officers, 40-year-old Julio Alcantara-Santiago and 32-year-old Christian Garcia, were slapped with a litany of sex abuse charges for the July 9 assault of the unidentified woman following a night out at a Grand Concourse bar.
The victim — who was unable to stand on her own and subsequently passed out — has no memory of leaving the bar, a Cuban spot called Zona De Cuba.
Instead, her next memory was waking up to the two cops allegedly sexually assaulting her in a bed in a strange apartment she didn’t recognize, according to the criminal complaint.
Her slight stirring, however, then apparently spooked her accused abusers.
“Let’s go bro, she’s waking up,” Garcia allegedly told the other cop, the victim said.
Later that morning, the woman woke up at around 7:30 a.m. and went to a local Bronx hospital to get a rape kit.
Doctors swabbed dried spit on the woman and DNA tests later confirmed that it matched both NYPD officers, according to the complaint.
Investigators also obtained surveillance footage from Zona De Cuba that shows the two cops, the victim and an unnamed female acquaintance leaving the establishment at 12:37 a.m.
The victim was between Alcantara-Santiago and Garcia, with each man holding her up by her arms as she was unable to stand or walk on her own, the video shows, according to the complaint.
Further footage shows the four getting into a car and pulling up to the female acquaintance’s apartment, where the two cops carry the victim inside.
The woman was “being held upright with her eyes closed, mouth open, unable to stand on her own, and constantly falling,” the Internal Affairs Bureau investigator said in the complaint.
Both Alcantara-Santiago and Garcia were charged with first-degree criminal sexual act, first-degree and third-degree sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, and forcible touching.
Both cops were suspended without pay, the NYPD said.
Alcantara-Santiago was previously arrested for allegedly groping a woman at the Hard Rock Cafe in Yankee Stadium in September 2022, but Bronx prosecutors dismissed the case the same month after viewing surveillance footage of the incident.
The cop called the accusation “humiliating” after he was cleared.
“I have been a cop 10 years and I only uphold the law — I don’t break the law,” he said in a statement at the time.
If you have been sexually assaulted and live in New York, you can call 1-800-942-6906 for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the state, you can dial the 24/7 National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
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