Policeman faces life behind bars for raping women he told: ‘It’s sex or prison’

A former police officer has been found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting more than a dozen black women in a poor neighbourhood he patrolled. Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, was convicted of rape, sexual battery and other charges. He preyed on 13 victims aged 17 to 57, most of them with police records, on the northeast side of Oklahoma City, his trial heard. The 6ft 2in former Eastern Michigan University football player, who sobbed in court as the verdicts were read out, would often give them an ultimatum - sex or jail.

He didn’t choose CEOs or soccer moms. He chose women he could count on not telling.

Prosecutor Lori McConnell

Holtzclaw, a police lieutenant’s son, often began the assaults under the pretext of checking for drugs, even though many of his victims realised a female officer should have been carrying out such body searches. One 17-year-old victim told how he raped her on her mother’s enclosed porch. A 23-year-old woman said he assaulted her while she was handcuffed to a hospital bed, telling her to stay still so that her heart monitor would not activate. Holtzclaw, who was caught when he assaulted a 57-year-old grandmother during a routine traffic stop, could spend the rest of his life in prison after the jury recommended he serve a total of 263 years.

Your offences committed against women in our community constitute the greatest abuse of police authority I have witnessed in my 37 years as a member of this agency.

Oklahoma City police Chief Bill Citty, as he fired Holtzclaw in January

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