BOSTON (WHDH) - A former MBTA police officer was arraigned Thursday on rape charges in connection with an incident involving two women who he took for a “joyride” in his marked cruiser while on duty in July 2012, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins announced.
A Suffolk Superior Court grand jury returned indictments on Monday charging Shawn McCarthy, 46, of Wilmington, with sexually assaulting two women while working as an armed, uniformed police officer, Rollins’ office said in a news release.
The victims, then in their early 20s, were drinking in Boston when they encountered McCarthy outside the Aquarium subway station, prosecutors said. Against the advice of a fellow officer, McCarthy then allegedly offered the women a joyride in his cruiser and drove them around the area with blue lights flashing.
McCarthy later stopped in a vacant lot and told the victims that he “hadn’t risked his job for nothing and he would not take them back downtown until he got something out of it,” according to prosecutors.
McCarthy allegedly raped the victims in his cruiser and drove them back to where they had met before warning them to keep quiet about the incident.
Prosecutors say the victims later told investigators that they submitted to McCarthy out of fear of “getting in trouble.”
McCarthy is said to have admitted that he had two women in the cruiser on the night in question but denied any wrongdoing. He was placed on administrative leave in December 2019 and resigned soon afterward.
“It takes great courage for survivors in a case like this to come forward,” Rollins said. “Members of law enforcement are held to a higher standard of conduct because the public’s trust in them is vital.”
McCarthy has since appeared for booking at MBTA police headquarters in Boston and was arraigned remotely.
He was released on the conditions that he has no contact with the victims or other witnesses and obtain permission to travel outside Massachusetts.
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