A Brooklyn woman has filed a lawsuit claiming that an NYPD sergeant groped and sexually propositioned her during an illegal search of the apartment where she works as a live-in caregiver last year. Latonya Ratcliff claims that Sgt. Joseph Jette and another plainclothes officer came into the Brownsville apartment in June 2012 without a warrant, and proceeded to intimidate her with sexual overtures: “I don’t believe he should have that kind of authority, because he abuses it,” Ratcliff told the News. “And I’m pretty sure that I’m not the first and I will not be the last.”
Ratcliff, 39, is a full-time caregiver for 52-year-old Shari Goode, who lived in an apartment at the Tilden Houses in Brownsville. Ratcliff claims that once he started frisking her, Jette cupped her breasts and butt, and fondled her under the pretense of patting her down.Goode’s nephew, 50-year-old Robert Sutton, said he was also at the apartment at the time and vouched for Ratcliff’s story: “He squeezed her breasts,” Sutton said of Jette. “You could see if a female has a gun on her in the summertime with thin garments on like that.”
After that, Ratcliff claims Jette provocatively took his gun out: “He asked everyone that was seated in the living room if we wanted to hold his gun,” Ratcliff said. “No one grabbed the gun; no one reached for the gun. I knew that was going to be bad news.”
Then she says Jette took her into a back room to question her more, and picked up a porno DVD. “He asked me which shots did I like and which one would I like to do with him,” Ratcliff told the News. Sutton added that when he was questioned, Jette allegedly asked him if Ratcliff performed a certain sex act well.
After the 90 minute search was over, Jette handed her a note with his phone number on it and asked her if she would like to “hang out." “They violated her constitutional rights and she suffered trauma, humiliation and fear of ... her home being invaded by police officers who appeared to believe they were accountable to no one,” says Ratcliff’s attorney, Matthew Flamm.
Jette, a member of the police force since 1998, received the NYPD’s Police Combat Cross, the second highest medal of heroism, after he fatally shot an armed man in Brooklyn who opened fire on him and other cops in July 2008. Ratlcliff doesn't believe he is much of a hero: “It affected me to the point I don’t trust the police,” she added. “When I see a cop now, the first thing I’m thinking is, it’s going to be crazy before it’s going to be something good.”
