Multiple lawsuits planned for Bay Area police sex scandal

ByDan Noyes KGO logo

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Multiple lawsuits planned for Bay Area police sex scandal

As the woman at the center of a police sex scandal that has hit seven law enforcement agencies around the Bay Area was released from a Florida jail, her attorneys said they are planning multiple lawsuits.

FLORIDA (KGO) -- The 19-year-old at the center of the police scandal that has hit seven law enforcement agencies around the Bay Area was released from a Florida jail on Wednesday. The question remains - who sent her to Florida in the first place?

It's the latest chapter for a young woman you may know as Celeste Guap, who now wants to be called by her real name Jasmine Abuslin.

Her attorneys took aim at the Richmond Police Department for sending Abuslin all the way across the country for rehab. They are planning lawsuits for officers who had sex with her and they say some cases started when she was underage.

Abuslin was flanked by her attorneys and her father after leaving jail. Her mother, Oakland police dispatcher Monica Cedillo, was not there.

The 19-year-old pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery in an altercation with a rehab worker. Now her attorneys are looking to sue police officers in four Bay Area counties, accusing them of trafficking Abuslin for sex, starting when she was underage.

"Take a look around, you don't know who's being sex trafficked, you don't know who is a victim of human trafficking," said her attorney, Pamela Price. "Human trafficking is a $1 billion industry in this country and around the world and most of the victims are women and children and it only survives because we tolerate it."

Seven current and former officers in Alameda County are already facing different criminal charges including engaging in prostitution, oral copulation with a minor, obstruction. More charges may be coming in other counties. Jasmine told me she was involved with more than 30 officers, four when she was underage. Her attorneys say they are planning multiple lawsuits.

"She is entitled certainly to compensation from each one of the jurisdictions where officers have violated the law and violated her civil rights," said Price.

Price also took aim at the Richmond Police Department for arranging to send Abuslin to a Florida rehab.

"We have many lovely facilities in the Bay Area, throughout California, and the kind of treatment that this young woman needs is not a drug rehab program," said Price.

Richmond Police Chief Allwyn Brown has not returned my repeated calls for comment, but he did release this statement Monday saying, "Representations that we 'sent' this teenage witness away or had her 'removed' to Florida distort reality. Her ultimate choice was no sudden revelation either - it was publically disclosed in early July 2016."

But Abuslin's criminal defense attorney contradicted that in court Wednesday.

"She was sent here by a police agency, told that she needed help for a substance abuse and possibly sex addictions," said Richard Kibbey, Abuslin's defense attorney.

For the future, another one of her attorneys says, "Celeste Guap exists no more" and Jasmine Abuslin has plans.

"She has freed herself from that other life, she intends now to go to school and get a degree and ultimately to go to veterinarian school and become a doctor," said her lawyer Charles Bonner.

The lawyers also said she has received threats on her life, so they will be arranging protection. Abuslin has been through so much. And now, her lawyer says she is taking a stand for all victims of sex trafficking.

Click here for full coverage on the Bay Area police sex scandal.