Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Patrick Heron is in prison, but Philadelphia\u2019s taxpayers continue to pay for the former police officer\u2019s heinous crimes.<\/p>\n
The city paid $2.3 million last month to settle a lawsuit brought by two women who were sexually abused by Heron when they were children a decade ago.<\/p>\n
A lawsuit by another victim is ongoing in Common Pleas Court.<\/p>\n
Heron, who retired from the Philadelphia Police Department<\/a> in 2019, was sentenced in 2023 to 15 to 40 years in state prison<\/a> after pleading guilty to avoid a trial on more than 200 counts of child sexual assault, pornography, kidnapping, and related offenses<\/a>. <\/p>\n The 56-year-old was arrested in 2022<\/a> and accused of using his position for years to lure girls, often targeting victims who had run away, been arrested, or struggled with addiction. <\/p>\n The women\u2019s lawsuit accused the city of \u201creckless disregard for the safety of the public\u201d by allowing a \u201cmorally corrupt sexual predator\u201d to remain on the force and victimize at least 48 women and girls, despite years of sustained complaints of misconduct against him starting shortly after he joined the department in 1995.<\/p>\n The department even began the process to terminate Heron in 2008, the complaint says, following sustained allegations that included \u201cassociating with known criminals,\u201d \u201clittle to no regard for his position as a police officer,\u201d and having been detained by police officers for soliciting a sex worker in Kensington<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Heron maintained his badge and went on to assault the two girls, among other victims. <\/p>\n \u201cInstead of just firing him, they were moving him around different districts,\u201d said Joshua Van Naarden of VSCP Law, the firm representing the two plaintiffs. <\/p>\n Heron eventually resigned in 2019 following an internal affairs investigation into an allegation that a uniformed Heron was caught by a CVS surveillance camera attempting to steal a phone charger.<\/p>\n Heron assaulted one of the two women in 2016 when she was 9 years old. He held her captive in his bedroom, took 22 illicit photographs while she was unconscious, and sexually assaulted her, according to the complaint. <\/p>\n The former officer sent her a Facebook message in 2021, when the victim was 15, and solicited photos from her as well as sex for money, the suit says.<\/p>\n And when the teen accused him of acting inappropriately, Heron threatened to have her arrested. <\/p>\n