By Mensah M. Dean
The Philadelphia Daily News
PHILADELPHIA — Former city Police Officer Malaika Mebane, who was caught receiving oral sex from a female prisoner in a jail cell, was sentenced yesterday to two to four years in state prison followed by seven years of probation.
Mebane, 39, was arrested Oct. 16, 2009, just hours after a female police officer discovered him in a jail cell with the prisoner inside the 35th Police District, at Broad Street and Champlost Avenue.
Mebane, one of more than a dozen city police officers who have been arrested since 2009, was on duty guarding the cell block at the time of the incident. The woman, who had been arrested earlier that day, told Internal Affairs investigators that Mebane began talking with her and eventually took her to an empty cell, where he touched her inappropriately and asked her to perform the sex act.
He was immediately suspended and fired 30 days later by Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who earlier this year announced tougher requirements for new hires to weed out undesirables.
Mebane initially was charged with nine crimes, but yesterday was allowed to plead guilty to just two: involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and institutional sexual assault.
Common Pleas Judge Karen Shreeves-Johns also ordered Mebane to pay $566 in court costs. She handed down the sentence after hearing from the former officer, who apologized to the woman he assaulted and to the department.
Ex-cops kept the Criminal Justice Center busy this week. On Tuesday, Joseph Harvey, 36, received a trial date of Nov. 23 on charges that he exposed himself to a 21-year-old woman while on duty in October 2009.
On Wednesday, Sean Alivera, 31, and his former partner, Christopher Luciano, 23, made court appearances to waive their right to preliminary hearings. They remain behind bars, having failed to pay 10 percent of $1 million bail.
The duo was arrested last month after they were caught in a drug sting. They allegedly kidnapped and robbed an undercover cop posing as a marijuana dealer.
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