A Kansas City
police officer has been charged with corruption after prosecutors accused him
of having sex with two women in exchange for not arresting them.
One woman told
police she was working as a prostitute, and the other said she had outstanding
warrants and marijuana in her motel room when she met Jeffrey Holmes.
Prosecutors say Holmes, 47, accepted sex from the women in return for not
arresting them during alleged incidents in March and April.
A judge entered a
not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf during his arraignment Tuesday and released
him on $75,000 bond. Holmes' lawyer, Kevin Regan, didn't immediately respond to
messages seeking comment.
Also Tuesday,
prosecutors in neighboring Platte County charged another Kansas City police
officer with misappropriating about $75,000 from his elderly mother. A lawyer
listed as representing Sgt. Mark Stinson did not return a phone message seeking
comment about that case.
Lisa Pelofsky,
president of the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, said the two cases,
while not related, show "the system is working." The police
department has suspended both officers without pay. Holmes has worked for the
department for 13 years. Stinson has been on the force for 17.
"Police
obviously are not in any way intimidated or afraid to follow up on these kinds
of charges and pursue them," Pelofsky said Tuesday.
A probable cause
statement filed by police in Holmes' case said a woman told police she was
working as a prostitute at a Kansas City motel when a man called March 24 and
said he wanted to meet her. The man, who she later identified as Holmes, showed
up wearing a police uniform and a gun, the statement said.
Holmes told the
woman she was "busted for prostitution" and ordered her to put her
hands behind her back, the statement said. The woman refused, saying she
"knew something wasn't right" because Holmes didn't have a police
radio with him. She called the front desk and asked the desk clerk to come to
her room. When the clerk left, Holmes told the woman he wanted her to be a
"snitch" and started to "'rub and hug" her, the statement
said.
The woman said she
then had sex with Holmes "because she wanted him to leave." Police
said she reported the incident as rape about three weeks later and identified
Holmes as her attacker after she ran into him in a police parking lot April 26.
The probable cause
statement said Holmes' phone records showed he called the woman before and
after the alleged incident.
The second victim
told police she was at a different motel in April when a man she later
identified as Holmes approached her in uniform and asked if she was a
prostitute, the probable cause statement said. She said she wasn't, but the man
made her take him to her room, where he said they were going to have sex. When
she asked him why, he responded, "You don't want to go to jail, do
you?"
The woman told
police she had marijuana in the room and outstanding warrants and was afraid
the man would arrest her if she didn't have sex with him, the probable cause
statement said. She later photographed his used condom and sent it to her
roommate with a caption, "Cop DNA."
She said the
officer later returned to the room, flushed the condom and made her delete the
text message but not the photo from her phone. The woman allowed police to
download the photo from her phone for their investigation.
Holmes' next court
date, a preliminary hearing, is scheduled for July 19.