NYPD cops fired for alleged ‘shocking professional and sexual misconduct’ with teen
Yaser Shohatee and Sanad Musallam
Two NYPD cops raped a vulnerable teen member of the police youth program, cruelly taking advantage of the underage girl to “satisfy their depraved interests,” an internal department judge has ruled.
The officers’ “shocking professional and sexual misconduct” included behavior from one of them that “would cause any responsible adult, let alone a parent, to recoil in horror,” the NYPD judge wrote in a scathing ruling made public last week.
Then-Officers Sanad Musallam and Yaser Shohatee “targeted’’ the girl, who was 15 at the time and a member of the NYPD’s Explorers program, according to the disciplinary documents.
Musallam and Shohatee, now 34 and 41, respectively, separately raped her amid dozens of phone chats and hundreds of text exchanges, which included “sexually explicit” photos, between 2015 and 2016, the records claim.
The judge, Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Trials Paul Gamble, recommended dismissing both cops after finding them guilty of the encounters and other internal misconduct charges in a 41-page ruling that forcefully rejected the officers’ narrative.
Both cops had denied the allegations and remained on the force at full pay until they were fired March 25, three weeks after Gamble’s ruling — and four years after the allegations were reported to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, according to disciplinary and payroll records.
Neither officer was ever criminally charged, with the case falling apart after the teen refused to continue to cooperate with investigators, said a spokesman for the DA’s office.
The accusations were never before made public. The NYPD began posting the outcomes of their internal trials earlier this year following a related court battle.
The two officers could not be reached for comment, and their lawyers did not return calls.
Shohatee, who met the teen on the job, solicited photos from the girl on Snapchat and asked her if she “would be down to have sex” in early 2016, the documents say.
After the social-media exchange, the cop, who was 38 at the time, had the 15-year-old girl over to his apartment late at night at least twice between November 2015 and May 2016, according to the ruling.
In one of the “clandestine” meetups, Shohatee sent a cab to the girl’s house to pick her up and then take her back home hours later, the docs say.
The pair also met once in his car, according to the documents.
In total, the two exchanged 857 texts, the internal charges say.
Shohatee admitted to having the girl alone in his apartment but denied any sexual interaction and testified “that he did not think having The Minor in his apartment was problematic,” the records show.
In the first visit, the cop told investigators, the girl had to use his bathroom and was in his apartment for no longer than 30 minutes.
As for her second visit, she asked to come over, he said, according to the disciplinary papers.
The judge dismissed Shohatee’s defense, writing in his decision that the secretiveness of their meetings proved the officer knew “of the illicit nature” of them and ruled that the two had sex at least twice.
“The insidious and sinister nature of [Shohatee’s] repeated actions would cause any responsible adult, let alone a parent, to recoil in horror,’’ Gamble wrote.
Meanwhile, Musallam first met the girl when her mother called 911 after the teen went missing, the documents say.
The mother asked if she could give the girl the officer’s phone number so that the teen could “contact him if she ever needed help or guidance,” the judge wrote.
Between July 2015 and December 2016, Musallam exchanged 742 texts and logged 80 phone calls with the underage girl, according to the charges.
In July 2016, the girl texted the cop, “My love, I have a big crush on you,” the documents say.
Musallam responded, “What did I tell you about texting me like this? U want me to block ur number?” according to the records.
The teen followed up the exchange with an illicit photo of herself “lying on her stomach on a bed, wearing a shirt and thong underwear, revealing a large area of her buttocks,” according to the disciplinary documents.
Musallam testified that before the photo, he thought her texts were “not inappropriate but weird and unusual.”
But the cop never reported the photo or told the mom about it, the documents say.
“I find that its incriminating nature should have been immediately apparent to any reasonable adult, let alone a police officer,” the judge wrote.
According to the ruling, Musallam did tell the girl’s mother in May 2016 he was worried she “is becoming too attached and that she needs therapy,” adding after the illicit photo, “he cannot message her because of emojis and flirty messages.”
Musallam claimed he saved the photo as “insurance… just in case” the girl accused him of “malfeasance” yet never blocked her number, the ruling says.
He also said he told his wife about the picture but later admitted during the trial that she found it while searching through his phone.
At one point during his relationship with the teen, Musallam and the girl were alone in his car while he was off-duty, the documents say.
The teen claimed to investigators that the cop asked her to “perform oral sex upon him, which she refused to do,” according to the records.
“He then asked her if she would ‘give him a hand job,’” the records say, adding she complied.
Musallam denied the teen’s accusation, testifying she got in the car after she “lied” to get him there and that the mother was on the stoop “about ten feet away” as they talked for “no more than five minutes.”
But the judge wrote, “The evidence supports a finding that Respondents individually targeted The Minor as a particularly vulnerable individual they were morally obliged to protect but chose to take advantage of to satisfy their depraved interests.
“Had I acquitted both Respondents of the sexual misconduct charges, I would nevertheless recommend termination, as the lack of judgment evinced by their flagrant disregard of Department policy would make it impossible for them to continue to be sworn police officers.”
The NYPD did not answer questions from The Post about where the officers were assigned when they were still on the force or if they had been reassigned or suspended after the accusations.
“There is zero tolerance in the NYPD for corruption of any kind and these two former officers forfeited their privilege to be part of our proud Police Department by disgracefully violating their oaths of office and the public trust,” a police spokesman said.
“We applaud the fact that it is as a result of an internal NYPD disciplinary trial that these individuals are no longer members of this Police Department.”
A spokesman for the Brooklyn DA said in a statement, “While
investigating the trafficking of a teenage girl, our office learned of
troubling allegations that she was sexually abused by two police
officers years earlier.
“While the young victim repeatedly
refused to participate in any criminal or other legal proceedings, we
referred our findings to the Internal Affairs Bureau, ultimately leading
to the officers’ termination.’’
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