A sobbing ex-cop is convicted of rapes

The jury recommended that Holtzclaw serve 263 years in prison for the victimization of the women, and prosecutors indicated that they want the sentences served consecutively – one after another – rather than concurrently, which would be Holtzclaw’s only hope of ever stepping foot outside of prison again.

The 12-member jury in the case – eight men and four women – had deliberated since Monday.

Daniel Holtzclaw is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

Figaro, who works in public relations, says her mother was the news director assistant at Oklahoma City’s Channel 4 for 15 years. All his accusers are black.

The case garnered the attention of the Black Lives Matter movement and other activists. “He counted on the fact no one would believe them and no one would care”.

Grace Franklin, activist and co-founder of OKC Artists For Justice, who has been organizing support for the victims, said she, too, was satisfied.

As another accuser put it, according to the Oklahoman, “I didn’t think anyone would believe me”. It could also represent progress toward a long overdue shift in the way our criminal justice system treats police officer offenders and rape victims, especially victims who are black. For them, Holtzclaw’s case is about the ideal storm of race, gender and the police, and the fear that Holtzclaw’s victims wouldn’t see justice because of who they were.

Holtzclaw’s attorney, meanwhile, described him as a model police officer whose attempts to help the drug addicts and prostitutes he came in contact with were distorted.

“I was out there alone and helpless, didn’t know what to do”, Jannie Ligons told reporters in Oklahoma, as she recounted what happened after a traffic stop with Holtzclaw. “We respect that”, he said. Another woman admitted on the stand to slipping out of her motel room the night before and procuring marijuana and the hallucinogen PCP.

Outside the courtroom, a prayer circle formed.

Liggons said she was different from other victims in that she did not have any outstanding warrants or convictions against her. Prosecutors said Holtzclaw preyed on women who had trouble with the law, thinking that their word would not stand up against his, adding he became more brazen with each attack.

Then, she said, Holtzclaw raped her, on the porch of her mother’s home. Eric Holtzclaw, left, holds his wife, Kumiko Holtzclaw, right, as the verdicts are read in the trial of their son, Daniel Holtzclaw, in Oklahoma City, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015. The women were stopped by Holtzclaw while he was presumably on patrol in a low-income neighborhood. Adams questioned several women at length about whether they were high when they allegedly encountered Holtzclaw.

Ultimately, that approach did not sway the jury to dismiss all the women’s stories.

One woman testified in handcuffs and orange scrubs, because she was jailed on drug charges hours before appearing in court, but the jury convicted Holtzclaw of forcible oral sodomy in her case.

The women who testified varied in age. “And we’re going to ask him to run consecutive, every count”.

“Some might not consider them model citizens”, Crump said at the news conference Friday. Some supporters of the women questioned whether the jury would fairly judge their allegations.

Daniel was a football star while in college, but his ambition of finding a place in the NFL could not be achieved.

Some other recent media coverage has focused on sex crimes by police officers. The charges included six first-degree rape counts. Not all states have processes for banning criminal cops from continuing to get jobs in law enforcement. But the AP investigation only counted states in which revoking an officer’s license was a possibility, and some big states like NY and California don’t even have that kind of decertification policy.

Janie Liggins Friday outside the Oklahoma County District Courthouse, with her attorney Benjamin L. Crump.