A former District Metropolitan Police officer has been convicted of first-degree sexual abuse of a child. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced that Lucius Kearney, 52, was found guilty by a D.C. Superior Court Jury. The victim, who was 15 years old at the time of the abuse, came forward nearly two decades after the incidents occurred, leading to Kearney's conviction.
The abuse happened during the 2005-2006 school year, according to evidence presented at trial. Kearney, then around 33 and a police officer, started communicating with the victim after they met at the Fourth District Police Station for a school project. Their interactions escalated from exchanging phone numbers to having sexual conversations and culminated in sexual acts performed in Kearney's truck near a D.C. library where the girl was volunteering.
The case came to light in 2020 after an accidental meeting between the victim and Kearney prompted the latter to check the tags on the victim's car while on duty. His body-worn camera captured the aftermath of the encounter, wherein Kearney was heard saying: "How in the world did I f**king manage to do that?!?" The disturbing self-addressed question and subsequent tag-check was evidence in the case against Kearney who was charged in 2021.
Maribeth Raffinan, the Honorable Judge of the D.C. Superior Court, has scheduled the sentencing for December 10, 2024. Meanwhile, Assistant United States Attorneys Peter Taylor and Richard Kelley represented the prosecution in this significant case, which was investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department.
