On Tuesday, the Associated Press detailed a RADE operation that went totally wrong! According to the outlet, on Jan. 13, 2021, a female informant for RPSO was raped during an unmonitored sting operation at a home on Texas Avenue involving a well known drug dealer.
According to the AP, Antonio Jones, 48, raped the woman who was wearing a microphone and hidden camera when she was forced to perform oral sex on him twice. She was looking to buy meth from Jones as a part of RADE’s operation. Authorities claim the microphone and camera cut off during the time so they didn’t hear her screaming for help.
“It was recording inside the residence. The guys outside monitoring the deal could not hear anything going on. They couldn’t hear it live. When she exited the residence, and comes out to my guys and tells them what happened, they verified that with the tapes, and that’s when we called the CID division, and they were called in. A search warrant and arrest warrant were issued at that point.” Sheriff Mark Wood to News Channel 5.
Jones was reportedly taken into custody on three counts, including one count each of second-degree rape, false imprisonment, and distribution of meth after recovering five grams of the substance following the operation.
While News Channel 5 was speaking with Wood regarding the AP article, they addressed that they had never received a police report nor a news release about the attack or the RADE operation, which are typically announced during press conferences. Wood responded, saying, “When you have victims involved, horrific crimes like this, that’s very serious stuff. Nobody is hiding nothing here. The gentleman was arrested for what he did. Crimes like this, we don’t want to make a big deal out of it for the victims. We really don’t.”
“We’ve always done it this way,” former Lieutenant Mark Parker told the AP, seemingly trying to justify the blatant disregard for the informant’s integrity that may have directly led to her rape. “She was an addict and we just used her as an informant like we’ve done a million times before. Looking back, it’s easy to say, ‘What if?’”
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Mr. Parker also said that deputies monitoring the home thought the victim was safe because another person had entered after her. An official speaking under condition of anonymity said they had listened to the recording of the rape and it was “one of the worst depictions of sexual abuse [they] have ever seen.”
“Just the audio from it is enough to turn your stomach,” the official told the AP. “It’s a female being sexually brutalized while she’s crying and whimpering.”