A Miami-Dade police officer who
stopped women drivers so he could have sexually suggestive conversations —
including asking to see the scars on a bartender’s surgically enhanced breasts
— was sentenced Thursday to 2-1/2 years in federal prison.
Prabhainjana Dwivedi would let
the women go without issuing any citations.
Dwivedi, a seven-year veteran
who once worked the overnight shift patrolling an area from Key Biscayne to
Jackson Memorial Hospital, was assigned to desk duty after he came under
suspicion for questionable traffic stops during May and June of 2011.
In February of this year,
Dwivedi, 34, was convicted of six misdemeanor counts of depriving a half-dozen
victims of their civil rights. Now fired, he was found not guilty on the
seventh count involving a female undercover police officer.
“Our victims were so traumatized
that one of them could not come to court [as a witness] because she was
physically ill,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert said, before asking U.S.
District Judge Jose Martinez to imprison the defendant for three years.
“He abused these women; he took
advantage of them.”
Dwivedi’s defense attorney,
Douglas Hartman, tried to depict the defendant in a more sympathetic light,
saying psychological evaluations showed that the Indian immigrant possessed the
reading level of a fourth-grader. Dwivedi, who received a high school diploma a
decade ago, also served in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Hartman said his misconduct as
a police officer was “aberrant,” and that generally over the course of his
career Dwivedi had an “outstanding” record.
The judge said he felt “sorry”
for Dwivedi, wondering aloud how he could have qualified to become a Miami-Dade
police officer with his limited intellectual ability. “That’s real scary,”
Martinez said.
But the judge concluded that he
would stack the penalties for Dwivedi’s six misdemeanor offenses because his
crime “tears at the very fiber... of our community.”
Both FBI and Miami-Dade Police
officials said Dwivedi undermined the public’s trust in law enforcement. “The
officer’s actions have tarnished the badges of all sworn to uphold the law,”
Police Director J.D. Patterson said in a statement. “We support this conviction
and remain resolute in policing our own.”
According to a criminal
complaint and other court records, Dwivedi was a rogue patrol officer who
detained female drivers for “unreasonable” lengths of time “without probable
cause, reasonable suspicion or other lawful authority to conduct a stop.”
Dwivedi stopped a 19-year-old
woman at 2:20 a.m. on May 27, 2011, as she was leaving a Miami-Dade nightclub
with two friends. The woman, identified in court records as A.R., said the
officer stopped her because she did not turn on her headlights. Dwivedi also
claimed she was intoxicated, which she disputed.
Dwivedi asked the driver to get
out of her car and sit in the back seat of his marked cruiser, then “instructed
A.R. to lower the zipper on the front of her dress down past her breasts to her
mid-stomach,” the complaint said. “A.R. stated that, by following Dwivedi’s
instructions, she somewhat exposed her breasts.”
She was detained for one hour
and 20 minutes before the officer left without issuing a citation. According to
Miami-Dade police, Dwivedi did not list the traffic stop on his daily activity
report, nor did he advise a dispatcher of the stop. He also did not conduct a driver’s
license check of A.R. or her two passengers.
The criminal complaint also
showed that on the same date, at 5:30 a.m., Dwivedi stopped a 24-year-old woman
bartender traveling from Miami Beach to her home in Broward County. He pulled
her over in the area of the Golden Glades interchange, where he accused her of
driving under the influence.
The woman, identified as M.F.,
asked the officer to perform a roadside sobriety test on her, but he refused,
the complaint says.
Dwivedi asked her if she was
the mother of a young child because she had a child safety seat in the rear
passenger area. He told the woman that if he arrested her for DUI, she would
lose custody of her child.
Then, he shifted the
conversation to the woman’s breast-enhancement surgery, asking her “if she had
any photographs of her breasts.”
“M.F. provided Dwivedi with her
cellular telephone so that he could view the photographs,” the complaint said.
“After viewing the photos, Dwivedi asked M.F. if she had any scars or incisions
from the surgery.”
She replied that she did, and
he asked to see them.
“M.F. then lifted her shirt and
showed Dwivedi the scar,” according to the complaint written by FBI special
agent Susan Funk. “M.F. stated that Dwivedi did not touch her breast.”
Afterward, the officer told her
that she appeared sober and could drive home. He also said that he would follow
her to ensure she arrived safely.
At her residence, Dwivedi said
he was thirsty, asking for a drink. The woman said the officer spent more than
one hour at her home talking about his personal life.
As in the previous incident,
Dwivedi did not list the stop on his daily activity report or inform a
dispatcher of the stop. He did not conduct a check of her driver’s license,
either.
