DENVER – A Denver police officer is accused of sexually assaulting a woman he first met while responding to a call for service last month, authorities said Saturday.
Johnny Leon Alvarez, 29, was arrested early Friday. He was being held in the Denver Detention Center for investigation of sexual assault and has been suspended without pay from the police department, according to a statement by Denver police officials.
A phone number listed under Alvarez’s name rang unanswered, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether he has a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
The Associated Press generally does not name victims of sexual assault.
A sworn statement by Det. John Johnson that accompanied an arrest warrant said Alvarez met the woman after he responded to her call for police assistance in December. She told authorities she called police because of an argument she was having with her partner at the time.
Afterward, Alvarez texted the woman to check on her, and they later began exchanged flirtatious texts, Johnson’s statement said. They arranged to go on a date, where they had “a couple of shots and a couple of beers,” according to the statement, and he drove her home just after midnight Friday.
The woman said she does not remember how Alvarez entered the house, and what happened next was redacted from Johnson’s written statement.
The statement goes on to say the woman told him no, tried to push him off her and fled to the restroom. She is not certain when Alvarez left.
Investigators interviewed the woman’s roommate, who was home at the time of the alleged assault. The roommate said she saw video from the home’s doorbell camera of the woman telling Alvarez goodnight, and then heard the woman inside the house say “no” and “please stop.”
Alvarez joined the Denver Police Department in 2018.
