SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – The San Jose police officer who allegedly masturbated in front of a family while responding to a domestic violence call last month was also accused of sexual harassment and assault in a separate case last year.
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Officer Matthew Dominguez, 32, was arrested last week and faces indecent exposure charges after he allegedly masturbated at the home of a family that he and others were dispatched to on April 21. The call was over concern that a mentally ill family member was being violent.
Dominguez was accused of touching himself in front of two female family members, and later exposing himself to the mother.
He has since been placed on administrative leave.
In the wake of his arrest, a previous sexual assault and harrassment allegation for Dominguez has also come to light, as first reported by the San Jose Mercury News on Thursday.
Menlo Park resident Jennifer Rodrigues, 25, publicly came forward to the paper and claimed that Dominguez inappropriately touched her while attending a party at the Campbell home of another San Jose officer last Memorial Day.
According to the paper, in her initial complaint filed to a police auditor last June, Rodrigues said that a visibly intoxicated Dominguez sat next to her and touched her breast and hair. When she tried to move away, he started touching her thigh and tried to play "footsie" with her.
Her boyfriend also claimed that Rodrigues made "inappropriate remarks" about Rodrigues' breasts and started "leaning heavily on her," the paper reported.
Rodrigues and her boyfriend told the outlet they reported the incident to San Jose's Office of the Independent Police Auditor and also told Campbell police detectives she wanted to press charges.
San Jose Police spokesperson Sgt. Christian Camarillo told KCBS Radio that they are "aware the Campbell Police Department investigated an off duty incident involving Officer Dominguez."
He said the results of Campbell Police's investigation were shared with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office, which decided not to press criminal charges. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office told KCBS Radio that they reviewed an allegation of sexual battery and declined to press charges based on insufficient evidence. The new case did not alter that analysis, the spokesperson said.
San Jose Police's Internal Affairs Unit is currently conducting an administrative investigation into the incident, Camarillo said.
Rodrigues told the paper that the outcome of the Campbell Police investigation was never shared with her and that she learned of the results when the San Jose Mercury News told her in their interview.
She also did not hear from San Jose Police again until earlier this month when the indecent exposure allegations against Domingues surfaced, 11 months after she filed her initial complaint. The department allegedly asked her boyfriend to send screenshots of the text he and Rodrigues exchanged during the incident last year.
"It's just super disappointing that they don't want to do anything about it," she told the outlet. "The fact that they throw my case aside and don't even have the heart to call and discuss it… it makes me feel like they don't care about women going through this. I deserve compassion and respect as any other victim."
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