TRENTON, N.J. (1010 WINS) — A New Jersey police officer has been charged with groping and trying to sexually assault a woman while he was on duty in 2019, authorities say.
Vernon Township Police Officer Emanuel Rivera, 37, was charged with three counts of second-degree official misconduct, one count of second-degree pattern of official misconduct, one count of second-degree attempted sexual assault and one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual contact on Tuesday, the New Jersey Office of Attorney General said.
Prosecutors say Rivera and at least one other officer responded to a 911 call involving a woman and her ex-boyfriend at a home in Vernon Township on May 11, 2019.
After the officers dealt with the unspecified incident, the woman told them she planned to spend the night at a friend's house, prosecutors said.
When the woman couldn't reach her friend, however, she decided to sleep in her car, according to prosecutors. That's when Rivera allegedly approached the car, made "inappropriate sexual remarks" and groped her, the attorney general's office said.
Rivera then told the woman to follow his patrol car to a parking lot behind an abandoned church, where he groped and tried to sexually assault her, according to prosecutors.
After he groped the woman, Rivera went back to work. The woman told her friend about the assault not long after, prosecutors said.
An investigation carried out by the Sussex County Prosecutor's Office found that Rivera previously made advances toward two other women after getting their phone numbers "through his position as a police officer," the attorney general's office said.
"We expect New Jersey's police officers to maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity," Acting Attorney General Andrew Bruck said in a statement. "Officers who abuse the public's trust can and must be held accountable."
Rivera's attorney information wasn't immediately available Tuesday.
