A former police officer who raped and sexually assaulted 13 women while on duty was sentenced to 263 years in prison on Thursday, according to the BBC. Daniel Holtzclaw, who was arrested in June 2014, preyed specifically on low-income black women.
Holtzclaw's sentence is in line with recommendations by jurors after he was convicted on 18 of 36 counts a month ago, including four counts of first-degree rape, according to CNN. He reportedly wept as the verdict was read to him, according to CBS News.
Holtzclaw targeted low-income areas in Oklahoma City while on patrol and used the stigma of criminal histories tied to drug abuse or sex work to undermine his victims' credibility, according to CNN. Many of the women who testified against him spoke of how Holtzclaw would check them for outstanding warrants or drug paraphernalia before assaulting them, according to CBC News.
The investigation in Holtzclaw's behavior came after a complaint was filed by Jannie Ligons, 57, who has since spoken about the long-term effects that Holtzclaw's assaults have on her daily life and her fear of being sexually assaulted again, according to CBC News. Other victims who have not been named also commented on the case, including the 17-year-old girl that Holtzclaw raped on her mother's front porch, according to the Independent.
"It's been hard on my family. It's been hard on me," the girl told the court, according to CBC, "Every time I see the police, I don't even know what to do. I don't ever go outside, and when I do I'm terrified."
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represented many of the victims in the case, criticized the fact that Holtzclaw was stopped only after Ligons submitted her complaint and that there were other women "whose calls went unanswered," according to the Independent.
"We need to find out how aggressive [investigators] were. We need to find out, how could this happen so many times and nobody see what was going on? It's mind boggling how nobody would catch this," Crump said, according to the Independent.
