Gay FL Cop Charged With Sex Crimes

UPDATE: Father Tony points out that despite the wording of the below Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel story, Bleiweiss' arrest report (PDF) makes it very clear that he was the one performing the oral sex, not his victims. The arrest report reads like a very, very bad porn script and may be NSFW.

Openly gay Broward County sheriff's deputy Jonathan Bleiwiess, 29, has been accused of coercing eight illegal immigrant males into performing oral sex on him during traffic stops.

Bleiweiss, arrested Monday, faces 14 charges, among them three counts of sexual battery by a person in authority, four counts of battery and one count of stalking. He's accused of intimidating at least eight men in his Oakland Park patrol district into performing sex acts with him during traffic stops. "This is not an act that necessarily impacts the gay community," said Michael Rajner, a local gay rights activist who lives in Pompano Beach. "This is an act of an individual, not a community." Investigators said they opened the case in April, after learning a deputy was committing the assaults. Officials on Tuesday declined to say when Bleiweiss became a suspect. He was removed from road patrol in mid-July, only after there was substantive proof to make a case, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright. The court documents state the men positively identified Bleiweiss from a photo lineup starting in July. Eric Schwartzreich, the deputy's attorney, said, "I do point out that they are allegations by undocumented aliens, that at this point in time I'm not seeing any physical evidence to support the allegations." During a bond hearing on Tuesday, he said it was too early to fully comment on the case.

Bleiweiss was recently lauded for his work in LGBT activism, such as organizing a 30-member team from his department to take part in the local AIDS Walk.