Second Bay Area police department responds to sex scandal

Officials say a fifth Oakland police officer has been placed on administrative leave as news that a sexual misconduct scandal has spread to other area departments.

Guap also had sex with five Richmond police officers – including a lieutenant and two sergeants – along with four Alameda County sheriff’s deputies, one Livermore officer and a Stockton law-enforcement worker, she claimed.

An internal investigation was launched last week at the Richmond Police Department after “several” officers were named as having alleged connections to the “young lady at the center of the Oakland police investigation”, Capt. Bisa French said.

The alleged misconduct among law enforcement personnel was initially brought to light when the Oakland Police Department’s internal affairs division investigated the suicide of Officer Brendan O’Brien last September. French said detectives had not yet interviewed the woman known by her fake name as Celeste Guap, but they were hoping to sometime this week.

Barry Donelan, president of Oakland’s police union, said in a press conference he is “mortified and deeply embarrassed” by the accusations.

The woman, who began selling herself on the streets of Richmond at age 12 and eventually ended up in Oakland’s International Boulevard, a well known sex-trafficking hub, said many officers knew she was underage.

He’s accused of hiding information about the sexual misconduct – in which some of his officers allegedly slept with the woman while she was a minor, according to The Mercury News.

“The Oakland Police Department holds all employees accountable for their actions on and off duty”.

That number is double the number she described to the East Bay Express, which broke open the growing scandal, and the East Bay Times, which confirmed numerous details.

Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent resigned Thursday.

Mayor Libby Schaaf originally told reporters on Friday that Whent’s departure had nothing to do with the sex scandal.