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Longtime LAPD Officer Arrested For Raping 2 Women

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A 33-year-old Los Angeles police officer was arrested Tuesday night on allegations that he sexually assaulted two women while off-duty.

Officer William Rodriguez, a 10-year veteran of the department, was apprehended by detectives with the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division. He is charged with two counts of forcible rape, the L.A. County District Attorney's Office reports.

Detectives began to investigate Rodriguez after receiving a report that he had raped an acquaintance in his home on Nov. 1 of last year, police say.

During the investigation, they got a DNA "cold hit" on Rodriguez using the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which linked him to a second sexual assault which had occurred in August of 2015. That case had been unsolved, but when Rodriguez's DNA was entered into the CODIS database, it produced the cold hit, prosecutors say.

Both sexual assaults occurred while he was off-duty, police disclosed. Rodriguez was working out of the Valley Traffic Division in Van Nuys but has been placed on administrative leave from the department.

"When one of our own breaks the trust of the people we are sworn to protect and to serve, it tarnishes the badge we all wear proudly on our chests," LAPD Chief Michel Moore said in a statement. "This arrest also reflects our commitment to pursue every lead no matter where the investigation takes us."

He is being held on $1.2 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, the DA's office said. If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

Anyone with more information on the case should call LAPD detectives at 213-486-6910.

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