Pittsburgh Police Officer Adam Skweres was arrested on February 17 after attempting to extort sex from a woman in exchange for legal assistance – the fourth accusation of sexual assault against Skweres since 2008.
On February 11, Skweres reportedly visited the home of a woman (whose name has not been made public) whose boyfriend had been arrested by the officer last November. Skweres had kept in touch with the couple on the pretext of using them as informants. With her boyfriend in jail, the woman was alone when the officer showed up in full uniform.
Skweres was acting strangely, asking the woman if she was wearing a “wire.” Alarmed by his unwanted presence and odd behavior, the woman ordered the officer out of her home, but he refused to leave. Instead he ordered her into the kitchen, where he turned on the faucet – presumably to mask any incriminating sounds in the event that the two of them were under surveillance – and wrote a demand for sex on a piece of paper.
When the woman refused, Skweres asked if she wanted his help to get her boyfriend out of jail. “Just let me have sex with you,” he demanded, before attempting to rape her. Terrified and helpless, the woman collapsed in a chair, where she was forced to perform oral sex on the officer. He then cleaned himself with a paper towel which he was careful to take with him.
Another woman, Melissa Watkins, accuses Skweres of doing almost exactly the same thing to her last December. Watkins, whose boyfriend is also in jail, was alone with her young daughter when Skweres materialized on her doorstep.
“He locked my front door and everything, he said, `so no one could bother us,’” Watkins told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “There’s a man with a badge and a gun in front of you, trying to proposition you. You don’t know which way it’s going to go.”
After asking Watkins if she wanted to “help” her boyfriend, Skweres unzipped his uniform trousers and demanded that the young mother service him.
“He kept asking me if I was smart enough to forget the conversation,” Watkins recalls. “I couldn’t even see a cop car without my throat closing up and feeling really nervous, like he could hop out at any time.”
Another woman claims that during a June 2008 custody hearing, Skweres offered to write a favorable letter to the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families on her behalf in exchange for oral sex – and that he would compose a negative letter if she refused.
On July 14 of the same year, Skweres attempted to extract sexual concessions from Sarah Smith following a traffic accident.
Smith, in the company of a friend, was driving to work when her car was sideswiped by a man on a motorcycle. At the time, she had no liability insurance, and was driving with an expired license. So she was understandably overwrought when Skweres arrived on the scene. Her anxiety soon congealed into terror.
Skweres drew Smith aside and told her “he could make it look like it was my fault or he could give the motorcycle driver a ticket for failure to obey signs,” she recalls. This would depend on her cooperation, which was to take the form of sexual favors. The policeman told her that what he would require “wasn’t as bad as what would happen to me in jail.”
Smith was told that if she fled she would be arrested for resisting arrest, then raped in the back of the patrol car. Gesturing to his gun, Skweres told her: “If you say anything about this I’ll make sure you never walk, talk, or breathe again.”
This happened in 2008. The Pittsburgh police were aware of this case, and two others like it – but didn’t arrest Skweres, or even remove him from duty, until a week ago — after he allegedly attempted to rape a fourth victim.
Who can protect the public when police become predators?