Opa-locka Cop Raped Woman During Traffic Stop, Lawsuit Claims

Editor's note: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.

A woman is suing the City of Opa-locka and accusing one of its police officers of raping her during a traffic stop last year.

The woman, who is identified in court documents as Jane Doe, claims that on April 7, 2024, she was in the vicinity of the MiLa Apartments — just south of the Miami-Dade County line and nearly five miles outside the Opa-locka city limits — when Opa-locka officer Carlo Alexandre pulled her over.

According to Santana, just minutes after parking on the side of the road, Alexandre sexually assaulted the woman by penetrating her with his finger.

"At that point, she did not believe she had any choice but to comply. She was scared," Santana tells New Times. "She thought he was going to have her arrested. She didn't know what to do."

Filed in Miami-Dade County civil court against the city, Opa-locka police chief Kenneth Ottley, and Alexandre, the lawsuit claims that Alexandre was in full uniform and driving a marked police car when he performed an "invasive search and seizure" of the woman's body and sexually assaulted her. Santana says Alexandre's body-worn camera was off during the entire encounter.

The officer asked the woman for her cell phone number at the scene, then called and FaceTimed her multiple times after the encounter, according to Santana.

She believes Alexandre may have targeted the woman, who is in her mid-30s, because she's "very pretty" and was wearing a short dress.

"Needless to say, she is traumatized by all of this," Santana says. "It's horrible because he violated the trust of this person and of the community."

According to Santana, the woman's friend eventually arrived and filmed part of the encounter. A nearly three-minute-long cellphone video obtained by New Times shows an officer standing at the driver's side window of a black Nissan, with his arms and head inside the car.

As the officer leans into the vehicle and speaks with the driver, he seems to notice the phone recording him, the video shows.

Santana says the video was filmed after the assault.

The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and more than $50,000 in damages. Neither the city nor Alexandre, who has since left the police department, responded to New Times' requests for comment.

Santana notes that while the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office (SAO) investigated the incident, the agency ultimately declined to pursue charges.

"It's a shame that women will now see this and not feel like they have a voice in the community because our client was sexually assaulted and the state is doing nothing about it," Santana says.

In an emailed statement, SAO spokesperson Ed Griffith said that due to several factors, including "inconsistent statements made by the victim" and "a delayed disclosure with no physical evidence," the office determined that there was insufficient evidence to sustain a criminal prosecution against Alexandre.

According to Griffith, the witness who recorded part of the encounter on his phone did not see or hear what was going on in the car, but only saw Alexandre leaning into the car.

"As a result of the investigation, the prosecutor felt that the requirement of being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime could not be met," Griffith wrote.

But while criminal charges couldn’t be pursued, Griffith said that the "behavior described by the victim and corroborated by telephone records was seen as concerning given the fact that Carlo Alexandre was a law enforcement officer."

"The officer’s lack of a body worn camera and the number of phone calls exchanged between the officer and the victim suggests that inappropriate behavior could have transpired," Griffith wrote. "It was determined that this matter should be addressed administratively by the City of Opa-locka police department."

On May 8, 2024, one month after the alleged incident, the mayor, city commission, and Ottley honored Alexandre and several other Opa-locka officers with special awards for saving a woman's life in March 2024.
But around two months later, records show Alexandre was no longer with the department.

State law enforcement records obtained by New Times show that Alexandre joined Opa-locka's police force in 2022 and left in July 2024; his departure is listed as "Administrative Separation (Not involving misconduct)."

Before joining Opa-locka, Alexandre worked for Homestead Police Department from December 2021 until February 2022. He then worked as an officer for both Opa-locka Police Department and the Florida Department of Corrections, the latter of which he left in July 2023, records show.

The small City of Opa-locka has long been marred by corruption allegations.

As previously reported by New Times, the city's police have been accused of having sex with arrested offenders rather than prosecute them and stealing property from the station, among other things. In 2017, the city's own residents tried to mount a campaign to dissolve the municipality entirely.

In May 2024, Opa-locka's fired former police chief, James Dobson, reached a $500,000 settlement with the city over his whistleblower lawsuit alleging corruption.

And as recently as September 2024, the city's assistant police chief accused Ottley of malfeasance and misconduct in a whistleblower complaint.