He sought defense in park sex cases
BY BEN SCHMITT
Detroit Free Press
DETROIT — The Detroit City Council unanimously rejected a resolution Tuesday to pay for legal representation for a former police sergeant in prison for forcing several people to perform sex acts in public parks last year.
Roosevelt Tidwell, 50, was seeking representation because one of the female victims has filed a civil suit against him. Tidwell also still faces additional criminal charges, said Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel explained that the city’s Law Department recommended that the council reject the resolution.
Tidwell pleaded no contest last year to third-degree criminal sexual conduct and is serving six to 15 years in prison. He was fired as a result.
In one case, a woman told police that Tidwell confronted her and a male friend on Jan. 5, 2007, while they were drinking in a car in a park near Alter Road and East Jefferson in Detroit. The woman told police that Tidwell said he wouldn’t charge the pair if the woman got into his police car.
Once inside, the woman told police, Tidwell forced her into a sex act with him.
Tidwell’s other felony charges include five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct accusing him of forcing several couples to perform sex acts in Chandler Park on Feb. 7 and April 14, 2007.
In the Feb. 7 case, a 21-year-old woman told the Free Press that Tidwell began calling her on her cell phone after he had forced her to touch him while she engaged in a sex act with her 30-year-old male friend.
Two women in the April 14 case, ages 22 and 25, told the Free Press Tidwell watched them in sex acts with male friends for about 15 minutes.
Copyright 2008 Detroit Free Press