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Suffolk Police Officer George F. Trimigliozzi indicted on rape charges - Newsday

Published 4 weeks ago3 minute read

A Suffolk Police officer previously accused of helping run a Holbrook brothel is facing new charges alleging he raped and sexually abused women he met on dating apps, a Suffolk prosecutor said Wednesday.

George Trimigliozzi, 56, of Islip, pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, third-degree rape and second-degree unlawful imprisonment before Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei in Riverhead. He was expected to be released on a $100,000 bond.

Prosecutors said Trimigliozzi took a woman he met on a dating app out for a date in Hampton Bays in June 2022 and forcibly raped her on her bed after asking to use the restroom in her home, where she had invited him in to sober up before riding his motorcycle him.

A year earlier, in May 2021, he is alleged to have touched a woman he took on a date to Patchogue in her private areas while she was seated in the passenger seat of his car, prosecutors said. Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Laura de Oliviera said Trimigliozzi reached over the woman and closed a door she had opened to leave the vehicle "prohibiting her escape."

"Police officers swear an oath to protect us," Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said in a statement. "These allegations are truly disturbing."

Prosecutors said both alleged victims believed they could trust Trimigliozzi because they knew he was a police officer.

Mazzei issued stay away protection orders for both women, who were not named in court.

Defense attorney William Keahon said the indictment unsealed in court Wednesday is "merely a mechanism to get allegations into this courtroom."

He described his client as a family man and decorated 18-year veteran of the Suffolk County Police Department. He said Trimigliozzi was named an officer of the month five times during his career and was honored by the U.S. Secret Service for one high profile arrest he made.

"One year he had the most arrests of any officer in the department," Keahon said of his client.

Keahon declined to discuss the new allegations against Trimigliozzi outside of court.

Trimigliozzi was suspended by the Suffolk County Police Department without pay before his indictment in the American Girls Spa brothel case last October, the department said.

Trimigliozzi "collected proceeds" from the sex workers and coordinated their schedules at the Holbrook brothel, which he managed with his co-defendant, Steven Arey, a teacher in the Islip school district, prosecutors previously said.

He is due back in court on the brothel case Thursday, though that appearance is now expected to be adjourned to a later date, attorneys said in court.

Grant Parpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.

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