Al Baker, Police Officer Accused of Sexually Abusing a Family Friend’s Daughter, NY Times

A New York police officer was arrested in Brooklyn this week and charged with sexually abusing the daughter of a family friend, the authorities said.

The officer, Jacob Sabbagh, 33, was suspended without pay and stripped of his gun and badge after surrendering on Wednesday to officers from the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau, the authorities said.

He is the third city police officer this year to face charges of victimizing a teenager.

In August, Joel Doseau, a sergeant, was arrested in Brooklyn on charges that he had sex with an underage girl he had met online in 2007, the authorities said.

Fifteen days later, Sergeant Doseau killed himself at his home in Canarsie, Brooklyn, the police said.

In March, Vladimir Sosa, 38, an officer who joined the force in 2007, was arrested in the Bronx on third-degree rape and other charges in connection with at least three encounters with a girl last year, while she was 16, according to a criminal complaint.

Terry Raskyn, a spokeswoman for the Bronx district attorney’s office, said the case against Officer Sosa, which was eventually dismissed, had been sealed. The Police Department said on Thursday that Officer Sosa had been suspended from duty since he was charged in March.

In the most recent case, Officer Sabbagh was charged with second-degree sexual abuse, second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child and endangering the welfare of a child, according to court papers.

He was arraigned on Wednesday and released on his own recognizance, officials said.

Officer Sabbagh, who joined the force in 2009, had been on modified assignment for more than a year and assigned to work in the department’s building maintenance section, officials said.

Investigators believe that the officer was a family friend of the girl’s who would sleep at her home approximately twice a month, according to a law enforcement official who spoke anonymously to discuss a pending case.

The official said the alleged encounters with the girl occurred from 2005, when she was 10, to 2008, when she was 13.

When the girl turned 16 and was living overseas, she complained to her mother, the official said, and last year she complained directly to the authorities.

Stephen C. Worth, a lawyer for the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, declined to comment on the matter.

A version of this article appears in print on December 18, 2015, on page A34 of the New York edition with the headline: Police Officer Is Charged With Sexual Abuse of Girl.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/nyregion/police-officer-accused-of-sexually-abusing-a-family-friends-daughter.html