Miami-Dade Police Officer Prabhainjana Dwivedi worked the midnight shift around Key Biscayne, Metrorail stations, and Jackson Memorial Hospital. If what the FBI says is true, woe unto any woman who ran into Dwivedi in the middle of the night. Because the cop had a bad habit of pulling over women for no reason, asking to see their breasts and underwear, and sometimes even following them back to their homes.
Dwivedi was arrested yesterday and charged with civil rights violations.
Between May and June of last year, the seven-year veteran was hit with four different complaints by women -- all eerily similar and all verified by investigators, the FBI says.
Dwivedi's M.O. was to pull women over early in the morning and accuse them of driving drunk. Despite those accusations, the officer often refused to conduct sobriety tests.
Instead, as in the case of "A.R.," a 19-year-old he pulled over around 2:20 in the morning May 27, Dwivedi made a series of inappropriate demands.
The cop made A.R. drive to a secluded location, the feds say, placed her in the back of his cruiser, and demanded she "perform inappropriate movements." Eventually, he asked her to lower the zipper on her dress down to her stomach, partially exposing her breasts.
He held the teen for nearly an hour and a half before letting her go. The cop filed no record of the stop in his reports.
Later that same morning, around 5:30, he pulled over a 24-year-old bartender just getting off her shift in South Beach. "M.F.," as the feds call her, endured an even stranger round of harassment, including demands to see her breasts -- which were augmented -- and rounds of questions over whether the surgery had left scars. Meanwhile, he threatened her with losing custody of her child for driving drunk, though he refused to administer a DUI test.
Dwivedi eventually followed her back to her home, asked to come in for a drink, and then spent more than an hour inside discussing his personal life.
The pattern continued the next month, on June 5, when Dwivedi pulled over two women in their early 20s -- "K.C." and "M.M." -- and their boyfriends. The foursome had been trespassing on a Key Biscayne beach around 4:30 in the morning, but instead of citing them, Dwivedi separated the women and began inappropriately questioning them.
"What are you wearing under your clothes?" he asked M.M., according to the feds. "What kind of underwear are you wearing?"
He later unzipped his pants and tried to pull off K.C.'s shirt before finally letting the group leave.
The officer now faces one federal count of deprivation of civil rights.
Here's the full criminal complaint:
dwivedi
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