Second NYPD Officer Gets Two Months for Misconduct

A judge said Franklin Mata deserved less time than his partner, but called him a 'disgrace'

A second New York City police officer who was cleared of rape and burglary charges in May has been sentenced to two months in jail for misdemeanor misconduct charges. Franklin Mata, 29, was accused of standing guard while his partner, Kenneth Moreno, raped a drunk woman they had escorted home. A New York jury decided there wasn't enough evidence to convict him and Moreno of the rape charge or burglary charges for taking the woman's keys, but it did hand down misdemeanor misconduct convictions. The officers were immediately fired. On Monday, Moreno was sentenced to a year in jail for the misconduct and entered custody immediately. Mata received a 60-day sentence on Wednesday, which he is due to start serving on Sept. 12. As he did with Moreno on Monday, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Gregory Carro had some harsh words for Mata, according to DNAinfo: "Forever you will be a disgrace to police officers. Forever you will have that scarlet letter shining on your back, and that's serious punishment," he said. But the judge seemed to indicate he thought Mata had been brought into more trouble by Moreno. "For some reason you continued to carry your partner's bags throughout the trial. For some reason you went with this joint defense with defendant Moreno, which quite frankly I don't understand," Carro said. According to the report, Carro said Mata "deserved more leniency than his senior partner because his involvement was less egregious."