Many college students know of the risks they take when they go out at night. Most, if not all, would never expect the danger to come from a police officer.
Aaron Reinsberg, a 32-year-old former Memphis police officer, was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in prison without parole for using a police database to search for the address of the female victim and rape the victim at her home in January 2013. Reinsberg also received an additional one-year sentence for official misconduct.
The victim, a Rhodes College student who worked at a popular bar on Beale Street, worked at the door of the restaurant and said in her testimony that she knew Reinsberg because she saw him walking along Beale – Reinsberg was assigned to patrol the entertainment district. The victim said she gave Reinsberg her number, saying she was too nervous to say no, but did not give him her home address or have any intention of seeing Reinsberg.
The victim returned to her home after a night of drinking on Jan. 20, 2013. Reinsberg had seen the victim earlier on Beale and preceded to text the victim throughout the night. The victim sent Reinsberg a text asking for him to come over later that night – a text that she meant to send to her boyfriend, but mistakenly sent to the officer.
Reinsberg used the victim’s phone number to search for her home address in a police database. According to trial testimony, the victim’s roommate let Reinsberg into the home because she knew him as a police officer on Beale. The victim said she remembers being in bed and seeing Reinsberg standing at her doorway as she drifted in and out of consciousness, and awoke to her being naked and Reinsberg on top of her.
From January through December 2010, the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project recorded 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct that involved 6,613 law enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims, according to a study by the CATO Institute. Of the 6,613 law enforcement officers, 9.3 percent committed sexual misconduct.
Judge Chris Craft said defense attorney Ted Hanson argued that the victim was intoxicated, had invited Reinsberg over by text and that Reinsberg thought he had her consent even though she never said anything.
“He had no defense to accessing the database, which was a felony (official misconduct),” Craft said.
Reinsberg was looking at a maximum 12-year sentence, but Craft says that he found three enhancement factors in the sentencing statute when determining the 11-year sentence.
Those factors include: “a victim of the offense was vulnerable because of age or physical or mental disability, the offense involved a victim and was committed to gratify the defendant’s desire for pleasure or excitement, and the defendant abused a position of public or private trust.”
Craft also said that the crime did not cause serious bodily harm, reducing the sentence from 12 years to 11 years.
“To college students everywhere: do not drink to the point of intoxication, especially outside your own home around people you don’t know well who can take advantage of you when you are unable to protect yourself,” Craft said. “In 36 years of doing this, I see numerous murders, robberies and rapes, and alcohol or drugs are involved in 95 percent of the cases.”
