Was This ‘creepy’ Los Angeles Sex-crimes Cop a Serial Predator?

By Emily Shugerman and Rich McHugh
Daily Beast
December 4, 2018

https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-this-creepy-la-sex-crimes-cop-a-serial-predator?ref=scroll

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

A veteran Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department detective was charged last week with tying up and raping a 14-year-old girl whose case he was investigating. The arrest of Neil Kimball, a seasoned sex-crimes investigator, sent shockwaves through the law-enforcement community—especially when it was revealed that he had already been accused of sexual misconduct years earlier.

But the allegations didn’t surprise Sara Abusheikh, a Los Angeles-based fashion designer who told The Daily Beast she tried to warn authorities about “creepy” Kimball four years ago. The detective assigned to investigate her sexual assault case repeatedly crossed the line, she said—making flirtatious comments, accusing her of liking her alleged assailant, and even encouraging her to go back to see him.

When she reported Kimball’s behavior in 2014—three years before he allegedly raped his underage victim—she says nothing was done.

“It was like trying to complain to a brick wall,” Abusheikh said. “It just makes you think, ‘How many other women are there that tried to complain about this guy?’”

Sara Abusheikh

Kimball, a 20-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, spent the last five years in the Special Victims Unit—a division that has investigated #MeToo fixture Asia Argento, former Disney executive Jon Heely, and other high-profile cases. According to the sheriff’s department, Kimball served as a potential witness in nearly 1,000 criminal cases over the course of his career.

The detective was arrested Nov. 16, after a tip from the public sparked an internal sheriff’s department investigation. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office charged Kimball with forcible rape and dissuading a witness from testifying last month. The sheriff's department suspended him with pay.

The department did not respond to questions about Abusheikh’s claims or the other allegation of sexual assault pre-dating Kimball’s arrest.

“When allegations of criminal activity involve law enforcement, we have systems in place to root out misconduct within the organization, as well as any Department member who chooses to violate the law and public trust,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Kimball has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment, and the detective did not answer an email sent to him in jail.

Abusheikh first met Kimball on June 18, 2014—more than a week after she first told sheriff’s deputies that an acquaintance had coerced her into non-consensual sexual acts during an encounter at his apartment.

From the start, Abusheikh said, the detective seemed dismissive, repeatedly reminding her she had little evidence and no witnesses. She said he eventually suggested they attempt a pretext phone call—an evidence-gathering tactic in which she would call and engage the suspect in hopes of extracting a confession.

But within minutes of arriving in Kimball’s car for the call, Abusheikh said, she began to feel something was wrong. The detective instantly struck a casual, almost flirtatious tone, she said, asking her if she ever used drugs. When she admitted she'd smoked weed to calm her nerves, Abusheikh said, Kimball repeatedly suggested that she wanted to take him home to get him high.

Confused and hoping to head off any attempts to move to her apartment, Abusheikh said she eventually offered to bring the detective some marijuana. He declined.

After the pretext call, Abusheikh said, Kimball told her the alleged assault sounded more like a misunderstanding. He told her the suspect seemed like a “good guy,” and suggested she liked him because of his British accent, she recalled. When the suspect invited her to come over again and cuddle, she said, Kimball suggested they have sex once more, “gently."

Abusheikh said she pressed Kimball, reminding him the suspect had allegedly hit her across the face so hard her cheek swelled.

“That’s true,” Kimball responded, according to her account. He added suggestively: “But what if he’d slapped you somewhere else?”

In a 2015 email to Daniel Perlman, a lawyer she hired to help with the rape case, Abusheikh expressed shock at Kimball’s remark. “I do not know what this detective’s issue is, but this is all really serious and I agree with [rape treatment center] that his conduct is unacceptable,” she wrote.

Her good friend Keri Kukral told The Daily Beast she remembered Abusheikh talking about the pretext call, and how Kimball had called her assailant a “good guy” and made comments about smoking weed together. “I remember her saying that he would text her and call her and really overstep the lines and say inappropriate things,” Kukral said.

In the weeks after the pretext call, Abusheikh said the suspect began calling her repeatedly. After she applied for a restraining order, his attorney started calling her, too. Abusheikh said she reached out to Kimball numerous times to express her anxiety about the calls. In text messages reviewed by The Daily Beast, the detective told her, “I think your [sic] just paranoid lol stop smoking weed lol. Isn’t that a side effect?”

"It was just so creepy,” Abusheikh said. “He never once talked to me like I was a rape victim in a case he was assigned to investigate.”