LAPD Cops James Nichols and Luis Valenzuela Used Their Badges to Sexually Assault Women. They Got 25 Years.

 

Two LAPD Narcotics Officers Sexually Assaulted Women They Were Supposed to Protect

James Nichols and Luis Valenzuela were veteran LAPD narcotics officers working together in the Hollywood Division.

They had badges. Guns. Authority.

And prosecutors said they used all of it to prey on women.

Between 2008 and 2011, Nichols and Valenzuela targeted four women, ages 19 to 34, whom they had encountered through narcotics investigations or previous arrests.

The women described being forced into sexual acts, sometimes inside the officers' unmarked police vehicle or in secluded locations. Prosecutors said the officers threatened women with jail or with exposing them as confidential informants.

In 2018, both men pleaded no contest to forcible rape and forcible oral copulation.

Each was sentenced to 25 years in state prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Their actions also cost Los Angeles millions in civil settlements involving women who accused them of abuse.

These weren't men pretending to be cops.

They were cops.

They knew exactly how terrifying the threat of arrest could be because they were the ones holding the handcuffs.

And they used that power to sexually assault women.