A jury just found a five-year veteran of the SFPD guilty of sexual battery, over a 2021 incident where he groped a woman at a Marina bar, and brazenly did so with her husband right there.
Five-year SFPD officer Michael Herrera was found guilty of sexual battery by a San Francisco jury Wednesday, according to the Bay City News. Herrera was off-duty at the time of the December 10, 2021 incident that the Chronicle reports happened at the Marina country music bar Westwood. The victim and her husband asked Herrera if they could sit at his booth, as the bar was crowded.
Herrera reportedly bragged that he was an SFPD officer, and started showing the couple pictures of himself and other officers. But he also reportedly began to stroke the victim’s inner thigh.
1/ Today, District Attorney @BrookeJenkinsSF announced that her office secured a conviction of San Francisco Police Officer Michael Herrera after a trial by jury for sexually groping a woman in a bar in the Marina District.
Mr. Herrera was convicted of sexual battery. pic.twitter.com/97eJMhRSPa
— SF DISTRICT ATTORNEY (@SFDAOffice) March 20, 2024
“At the booth, with her husband next to her, Mr. Herrera then grabbed the victim’s inner thigh, causing her to push away his hand and leave the table,” according to a release from DA Brooke Jenkins’s office. “As the victim later went to pay at the bar, Mr. Herrera walked up, stroked her hair, and then groped her vaginal area. The victim then screamed at him for violating her and called 911.”
The Chronicle adds that the incident was caught on the establishment’s security camera, and the victim’s accounts were corroborated by an on-duty bartender who witnessed it.
Herrera was charged with two counts of sexual battery, though was apparently only found guilty on one misdemeanor count. And he’s been on paid leave from the department for more than two years.
A sentencing for Herrera is scheduled for May 8. He faces up to a year in jail, which may end up being a lighter sentence. But he will have to register as a sex offender for ten years.
Related: SFPD Scandal Could Cause 132 Drug Cases to be Tossed, Suspect With 11 Pounds of Fentanyl Off the Hook [SFist]
Image: BrokenSphere via Wikimedia Commons
2024-03-21 19:16:54
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