A FORMER POLICE officer convicted of raping and sexually victimising women while on his beat in a low-income part of Oklahoma City was today ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jurors recommended that Daniel Holtzclaw be sentenced to 263 years in prison for preying on women in 2013 and 2014.
District Judge Timothy Henderson agreed, said Holtzclaw will serve the terms consecutively and denied his request for an appeal bond.
Holtzclaw’s lawyer, Scott Adams, said he will be appealing.
“It is what it is,” Adams said. “It wasn’t a surprise.”
Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater had strong words for Holtzclaw, who was convicted last month on 18 counts, including four first-degree rape counts as well as forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery, procuring lewd exhibition and second-degree rape.
Holtzclaw was acquitted on 18 other counts.
I think people need to realise that this is not a law-enforcement officer that committed these crimes. This is a rapist who masqueraded as a law-enforcement officer.
If he was a true law enforcement officer he would have upheld his duty to protect those citizens rather than victimise them.
During the month-long trial, 13 women testified against Holtzclaw, and several said he stopped them, checked them for outstanding warrants or drug paraphernalia, and then forced himself on them.
All of the accusers were black.
Holtzclaw is half-white, half-Japanese, and the son of a longtime Oklahoma police officer.
Holtzclaw’s lawyer had described the former college American football star as a model officer whose attempts to help the drug addicts and prostitutes he came in contact with were distorted.
Adams also attacked the credibility of some of the women, who had arrest records and histories of drug abuse, noting that many didn’t come forward until police had already identified them as possible victims after launching their investigation.
Holtzclaw’s victims included a teenager and woman in her 50s. Three accusers delivered victim-impact statements today, and at least one other was in the courtroom.
Jannie Ligons, whose complaint in June 2014 launched the investigation of Holtzclaw, said she has been under stress because of the case and the fear of being sexually assaulted again.
My daughter and sisters are frightful when a police car pulls up behind them.
Another woman, who was 17 at the time of the assault, said her “life has been upside down” since Holtzclaw raped her on the front porch of her mother’s home.
It’s been hard on my family. It’s been hard on me. Every time I see the police, I don’t even know what to do. I don’t ever go outside, and when I do I’m terrified.
Several of Holtzclaw’s victims have filed civil lawsuits against Holtzclaw and the city in state and federal court.
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