Two former cops who were accused of burglarizing and groping a sex worker are free and clear after prosecutors in the Office of the Queens District Attorney said they could not meet the requirements of speedy trial rules.
In March, a Queens grand jury indicted Justin McMillan, 27, and Justin Colon, 24, for a bizarre encounter in which the former rookie NYPD cops were accused of stealing keys to a residential building in the early part of their shift, and then returning to the building where they allegedly stole from a prostitute, and groped her – all while in uniform and on-duty in Jackson Heights.
At the time, Queens DA Melinda Katz said the burglary, forcible touching and misconduct allegations were “an affront to the shield worn by the countless police officers who serve and protect the residents of this city.”
Katz added that both men would “face justice in our courts.”
But nine months later, prosecutors in Katz’s office appeared to fumble the case on a technicality, failing to certify readiness for trial within the legally mandated timeframe. Last week, Judge Toni Cimino ordered the indictment against McMillan and Colon dismissed, sealing the entire case at the request of the defendants.
Approached outside of the courtroom, neither McMillan nor Colon responded to questions about the alleged encounter with a sex worker that got them indicted. They had both previously pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Michael Martinez, a lawyer for Colon, said “We have nothing to add. The case is dismissed. It’s over.”
Katz declined a request to be interviewed and a spokesperson for the Queens DA’s Office, Brendan Brosh, declined to answer questions about why prosecutors were unprepared for trial.
“This prosecution is now sealed as a matter of law,” Brosh wrote to the I-Team in an emailed statement. “This case presented numerous discovery challenges and as a result the case was dismissed by a judge today on speedy trial grounds.”
Discovery is the legal process whereby prosecutors give defense lawyers access to things like DNA, video, and witness statements, in order to ensure the accused have access to all the evidence against them.
It’s not clear what items prosecutors were unable to hand over in this case, but the original Queens DA news release mentioned a series of key pieces of evidence.
According to the original Queens DA news release, in the early morning of July 19, 2024, the sex worker ran out of the residential building on 89th Street and called 911 after McMillan allegedly stole money out of her purse and then “grabbed her breast and rubbed her buttock.” The release said there were also witnesses who helped the sex worker make that 911 call.
In addition to that evidence, the news release said the former cops were wearing body cameras that recorded one of the men saying, “I don’t see anything,” just before they shut the cameras off and approached the building.
In Katz’s original statement, she said the former cops “forcibly touch[ed] a woman while on duty, with their body-worn cameras intentionally turned off so that their misdeeds would not be recorded.”
At the time of the indictment, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the legitimacy of police work is based on the public’s trust and “when that trust is broken, as it was in this case, the entire police department must answer for it.”
Despite that statement, Tisch declined to provide answers when asked about the collapse of the criminal case against her two former officers.
Cynthia Godsoe, a Brooklyn law professor who also advocates for prosecutorial ethics, said the failure to bring a sex crime case to trial when the defendants were police officers reduces public trust in the legal system.
“It’s really terrible,” Godsoe said. “It sends the message that no one cares. Which has kind of been a message that I think most sex workers and vulnerable people in New York often feel anyway. No one cares how the police treat them.”
The NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) Sexual Assault Investigation Unit conducted the investigation into McMillan and Colon.
A spokesperson for the NYPD declined say whether IAB turned over all its evidence to prosecutors in the case, referring questions to the Queens DA. The NYPD also declined to share the former officers’ bodycam video or audio of the 911 call.
In response to questions from the I-Team, the spokesperson said only that both McMillan and Colon have resigned from the department. The two former cops had only been on the job less than a year when they were indicted.