House
arrest ahead for Vegas officer in abuse case
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas
judge set bail at $16,000 and placed a suspended police officer on house arrest
Thursday pending a Jan. 14 preliminary hearing on allegations that he sexually
intimidated women he met during routine calls.
Solomon Coleman, 28, stood in
court with his lawyer and spoke only to acknowledge that he understood the
charges against him, including oppression under color of office with threat of
force, a felony, and four misdemeanors including gross lewdness and taking
pictures of a person's private area.
Coleman wasn't asked to enter a
plea, and Justice of the Peace William Kephart allowed him to remain free for
24 hours pending processing and release from the Clark County jail.
Coleman was named in an arrest
warrant issued last Friday. His lawyer, Josh Tomsheck, told the judge he
arranged for Coleman's surrender in court on Thursday to smooth the process of
arresting and processing a police officer at the jail.
Tomsheck said Coleman would
post bail.
Outside court, Coleman huddled
with family members and avoided reporters while Tomsheck said he had just
received police reports in the case.
"Obviously, there's more
to the story than we know at this time," the defense attorney said.
Prosecutor Lisa Luzaich
declined comment.
Coleman, a five-year police
veteran who was born, raised and married in Las Vegas, was suspended with pay
pending departmental action.
Among other allegations, he is
accused of remaining at the home of a woman whose boyfriend had been arrested
in June on a domestic violence charge and instructing the woman to disrobe so
he could check her for bruises and photograph her body.
The woman told the Las Vegas
Review-Journal for a Thursday report (http://bit.ly/11Nk2zC ) that her
5-year-old son walked into the bedroom during the incident and Coleman ushered
the boy away.
Coleman later exposed himself
to the woman in her bathroom, the newspaper reported, citing the woman, then
returned to the woman's home later, but she didn't open the door.
Other charges stem from
allegations that Coleman used his phone to record more than 20 minutes of a
personal sex video from another woman's cellphone, which police had seized
during an arrest.
Police matched Coleman's patrol
records with the date the video was recorded and determined he had taken the
phone from a California woman during a traffic stop in June 2012, the
Review-Journal said.
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