EDINBURG
A former Alton police officer who has accused ex-chief Jose Luis Vela of sexual assault said it took nearly a year for him to come forward because he was embarrassed.
The officer told jurors that on Aug. 26, 2006 he woke up in Vela's bed to find the chief performing oral sex on him.
"I grabbed my clothes and started leaving," said the officer, who is identified by the pseudonym "Frank" in court filings. "I went outside and I threw up."
Frank's testimony came this morning on the first day of Vela's trial on sexual assault charges. It is The Monitor's policy not to identify victims of sexual assault.
Prosecutors allege the former Alton officer accepted several drinks from the ex-chief on the night of the alleged assault and had not agreed to any sexual activity.
"He's a police officer - a man who fell victim to another man," Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Hope Palacios said. "He was ashamed. He was fearful. He was disgusted."
Vela's defense, however, argued that the sexual encounter between the two men occurred in the midst of a consensual relationship.
During this morning's proceedings, attorney Luis Singleterry suggested that Vela and Frank had had at least four prior sexual encounters before the August 2006 incident.
Frank denied those allegations and said that he has had a hard time talking about Vela's advances ever since.
Soon after the purported encounter, Vela fired him, Frank said. But the chief offered the patrol officer his job back days later.
At the time, Vela ordered him to keep quiet, threatened his future career and suggested he could receive a promotion if he kept quiet, Frank told jurors.
But he said he was subject to several other advances from his boss during the nearly year and a half afterward that he continued to work at the department.
In one instance, Vela called him over to his house while he was on duty, the officer said.
"As soon as I opened the door Mr. Vela was naked and tried to give me a hug," he said. "That's when I pushed him back, told him my stomach hurt and told him I had to ho home."
Vela, 44, of Alton, also faces two other indictments stemming from allegations that he sexually assaulted at least one other officer with a beer bottle and stole a gun from his department's evidence locker. Those cases have not yet gone before a jury.
Frank and three other current and former Alton Police Department employees filed a civil lawsuit against Vela and the City of Alton earlier this year, claiming that the city had not adequately responded to their complaints about the chief's alleged sexual assaults.
Vela has since been dropped from that suit.
Testimony in his criminal trial is expected to resume this afternoon.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6087055.html
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