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Timothy Valentin discovered his dates the best way so many individuals discover one another these days: Hinge. Loads of Fish. Bumble. Match.com. He had a profile you would possibly swipe proper on some uninteresting Tuesday evening—effectively groomed, match, and completely satisfied to satisfy in a reassuringly public place, just like the neighborhood bar. Nothing heavy, nothing untoward. In individual, he advised tales of his work with the FBI. He was skilled, even reassuring, and gentlemanly, insistent on shopping for the drinks.
Besides Valentin would then supply only one extra drink and drug his dates mindless, officers accustomed to a widening investigation into his habits declare. As the ladies drifted into oblivion, they’ve alleged to cops, he would assist them into his automotive with a proposal to seize a nightcap, then movie himself raping them. He left little hint: His victims hardly ever had any recollection of what had occurred, officers declare. They merely thought that they’d met a pleasant man in a crowded, public place and drank greater than they need to have.
Final April, certainly one of Valentin’s alleged victims awoke with the conviction that one thing was improper, in response to court docket paperwork. The evening earlier than felt blurred and disorienting. She had left the bar with Valentin and recalled getting in his automotive—the place that officers declare was the locus of his crimes. Believing that she had been violated, she went to Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Division. There she realized that Valentin was no FBI agent. He was a former embellished officer of the very division now tasked with investigating him.
In December, authorities in Alexandria, Virginia, arrested Valentin on fees together with rape, sodomy, and altering meals or drinks. As investigators pursued the case, they uncovered an enormous quantity of proof—digital information, private results, and testimony—that implies that Valentin could have carried out comparable crimes throughout the mid-Atlantic, folks accustomed to the case advised me. In the present day, Valentin was charged or indicted in a number of extra circumstances in Virginia and Maryland, and investigators requested for extra potential victims to contact legislation enforcement. Authorities consider that they’ve recognized greater than a dozen victims so far, the folks accustomed to the case mentioned. Primarily based on the proof gathered thus far, authorities venture that the last word variety of victims might exceed 50—which might make the case one of the in depth drugging and sexual-assault investigations in U.S. historical past.
“I need to acknowledge the enormity of this second,” Tarrick McGuire, Alexandria police chief, advised reporters this afternoon, providing sympathy and help to the alleged victims. He mentioned Valentin could possibly be described as a serial offender.
Valentin’s protection legal professional, Gretchen Taylor Pousson, mentioned that Valentin is “presumed harmless, and we’ll vigorously defend his constitutional rights at trial.” She added that the primary Virginia trial is ready for August and that “we’ll take all applicable steps to guard Mr. Valentin’s proper to a good and neutral jury.”
Valentin has pleaded not responsible and maintains his innocence, telling the court docket that he’s wanting to return to his job as an insurance-fraud investigator (the corporate says that he now not works there). The alleged victims, he has maintained, consented to his advances.
About 80 million Individuals use relationship platforms, in response to statistics from eHarmony, a relationship firm. Three in 10 Individuals say they’ve used a relationship web site or app, in response to a 2023 Pew Analysis Heart examine. That rises to half of adults aged 18 to 29. However on-line relationship rests on a quiet religion that the individual on the opposite facet of the display screen is who they declare to be.
The apps promise company. Not ? Simply swipe left. But anybody can painting themselves any means they need, and predators have repeatedly used relationship apps to search out victims. “Who needs to start out out on a date being suspicious and cautious?” Mindy Mechanic, a medical and forensic psychologist, requested me. Most violence in opposition to ladies is dedicated by folks they know and belief, Mechanic added, as a result of these are conditions the place ladies anticipate to be secure. However charming strangers can create that ambiance too, leaving ladies probably weak, particularly when partying is concerned. “One factor to consider is to not drink alcohol,” Mechanic mentioned.
Representatives for Match Group, the dad or mum firm of Hinge and Match.com, and a spokesperson for Bumble mentioned that their firms keep devoted groups that work with legislation enforcement on investigations. Bumble mentioned that it continues to boost the app’s assist heart and has launched new security options corresponding to ID verification and necessary picture verification. Each harassed the factor of belief as a function paramount to their enterprise fashions.
My reporting at The Atlantic normally focuses on nationwide safety and the White Home. However earlier this yr, as I used to be engaged on a narrative, I reached out to an outdated good friend and colleague, Scott Weinberger. A former Florida deputy sheriff turned investigative journalist, Weinberger focuses on overlaying complicated legal circumstances; his investigative work on the podcast Chilly Blooded helped resolve a homicide after greater than 4 many years. Weinberger was in search of his subsequent crime-documentary venture and advised me that he had caught wind of one thing unfolding in Washington: A former D.C. police officer had been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting ladies he met on-line and recording his assaults.
I felt a chill. Almost everybody I do know has swiped, matched with, or messaged a stranger. A number of years in the past, I met my husband on a relationship app. Weinberger and I started to look into the case.
For among the ladies, the primary indication that one thing had gone improper was the knock of detectives at their door. Investigators obtained surveillance video from a preferred Irish pub in Alexandria the place Valentin took the girl who first reported him to the police. The footage exhibits the 2 of them chatting, laughing, and ingesting, investigators advised us. However when the girl went to the lavatory, Valentin eliminated a small sandwich bag from his pocket and poured a powdered substance into his date’s drink, combined it round, and both sipped or blew on it, in response to court docket information describing the surveillance footage. Prosecutors allege that Valentin was guaranteeing that the style of the drug was undetectable; his protection legal professional says that he couldn’t probably have put a drug within the drink if he was prepared to style it himself.
The sufferer, in response to court docket paperwork, advised investigators that she’d felt sleepy, “much like being positioned beneath anesthesia for a surgical procedure.” She advised investigators that she recalled waking as much as discover herself mendacity on her left facet along with her head towards the driving force’s facet of the automobile, her underwear pulled down and her gown pulled up. Valentin, in response to the court docket information, was allegedly in a kneeling place over her. She had hazy recollections of being raped and compelled to carry out oral intercourse.
Court docket information present that after the sufferer reported the occasions of that evening to police, she had a toxicology screening. In her urine, medical experts detected bromazolam—a sedative with no authorized medical use, though it’s among the many dozens of medicine identified for use in rapes. Male DNA was additionally detected within the sufferer’s mouth and vaginal space, in response to court docket information.
After Valentin’s December arrest, investigators cracked open his cellphone, laptop computer, and on-line accounts, uncovering what they described as a trove of recordings. His cellphone alone allegedly contained dozens of video information, some depicting a number of recordings involving the identical sufferer, in response to folks accustomed to the investigation. The standard of the movies various. Some have been grainy. Some obscured the victims’ face, however the ladies could possibly be heard attempting to withstand.
Afterward, these folks mentioned, Valentin typically eliminated driver’s licenses from purses and photographed them, although investigators can’t say why: to know the place to drive them dwelling? To revisit them? To extort them? (Pousson, Valentin’s protection legal professional, harassed to the court docket that he’d by no means tried to contact the alleged sufferer after their date.)
In latest weeks, investigators seized at the very least a gigabyte of knowledge, and extra should still be pulled from Valentin’s Dropbox and Google Cloud accounts, the folks accustomed to the probe advised us. The GPS metadata embedded within the movies have helped authorities monitor the place the alleged crimes passed off.
Police looking out Valentin’s automotive additionally discovered a cache of condoms and lubricants, and several other individually packed baggies of powder, which they believed to be the substance used within the drinks, the folks accustomed to the investigation advised us. (The powder has been despatched to a lab for testing, a course of that may take a number of months.) Pousson advised a court docket that the baggage contained Adderall, a prescribed stimulant that the legal professional mentioned Valentin takes to deal with ADHD.
Valentin joined D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Division in 2017. He was a 22-year-old with a school diploma and the earnestness of a younger man who, his legal professional advised the court docket, believed in public service. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, crime charges within the District jumped—homicides rose nearly 20 p.c in 2020 from the earlier yr—straining the division. In 2021, Valentin was awarded the Ribbon of Valor, an inside commendation for many who serve with honor and distinction throughout particular particulars. Valentin resigned from the power a yr later. (The MPD referred questions on Valentin’s case to jurisdictions the place he’s been charged. Not one of the fees date again to his time on the power, officers accustomed to the investigation advised us.)
Valentin has PTSD stemming from a taking pictures he was “concerned in” whereas on responsibility, court docket information mentioned (with out offering any particulars), in addition to ADHD. Final yr, he joined the Maryland Insurance coverage Administration, an unbiased state regulator, as a fraud investigator. The corporate advised us that he’d stopped working there as of December 31, after his arrest.
On a latest afternoon, Weinberger and I drove to Fort Washington, Maryland, a quiet, middle-class D.C. suburb, the place Valentin, now 30 years outdated, lives together with his mom. A neighbor, Malinda Battle, describes Valentin as well mannered and reserved—the type of neighbor who retains to himself however exhibits up when wanted. He and Battle share a love for cats; at the very least a dozen could possibly be seen wandering backwards and forwards between their adjoining properties. Battle advised us that she would tease Valentin about his speedy driving, telling him that he’ll “miss the storage” at some point. She principally observed him taking out the trash or pausing to pet the cats. “I’m stunned to listen to that he’s gotten in bother,” she mentioned, with a glance of disappointment. “He’s simply the type of man you need as a neighbor.”
Serial offenders are hardly ever pushed by impulse alone. Over time, their crimes are inclined to evolve right into a ritual—one which serves not simply their wishes but additionally their ego. N. G. Berrill, a forensic psychologist who has studied the psyche of repeat offenders, advised us that repeat predators typically develop a way of psychological elevation and an endorphinlike rush tied to their potential to control others. Success breeds a type of intoxicating confidence. “There’s normally a type of grandiosity to serial criminals,” Berrill mentioned. “There’s vanity, and there’s additionally a type of a excessive. That is what excites them: the chase.”
Serial offenders are inclined to depend on small however consequential transitions throughout an encounter—a sinister choreography that strikes a possible sufferer from relative security to isolation. An invite for yet one more drink, a suggestion to vary areas, an informal proposal to proceed the night someplace quieter: Every step is a calculated check of belief. Persuading somebody to depart a public setting—as an illustration, to get in a automotive—could be the essential threshold. The predator has successfully reshaped the surroundings and might dictate phrases.
“These are sometimes males who’ve the chance to have consensual sexual relationships with ladies,” Mechanic mentioned. “However the pleasure, the joys, is taking one thing from someone who’s not prepared to present it, and utilizing instruments like medication, alcohol, to get it.”
However pinpointing a precise drug utilized in an occasion of date rape is seldom simple. Trinka Porrata, a former Los Angeles Police Division narcotics supervisor who now leads Undertaking GHB (a nonprofit devoted to sexual assault and date-rape consciousness), advised us that the general public fixation on a single “date-rape drug” obscures a far broader and extra troubling actuality. “It’s a giant delusion that there’s one or two,” Porrata mentioned, noting that greater than 50 substances—from prescription medicines to over-the-counter antihistamines—could be weaponized to decrease a sufferer’s management or consciousness. “Any drug that impairs your potential to regulate your self and your surroundings can be utilized,” she defined, including that these are higher understood as “predatory medication,” typically used not just for sexual assault but additionally for robberies.
Alcohol steadily intensifies the results, Porrata mentioned, together with with bromazolam—the substance discovered within the urine of the primary alleged sufferer. The scale of the girl additionally makes a distinction—a extra petite girl may be harder-hit with a decrease dose.
Fashionable social habits have, in some methods, made this course of simpler, Berrill and Mechanic mentioned. The tradition of digital introductions—relationship apps, spontaneous meetups—implies that folks meet “beneath essentially the most doubtful circumstance” with somebody they don’t know, Berrill mentioned, creating an ambiguous house for people expert in deception to take advantage of. Predators, he added, relish the ritual of figuring out a goal, deploying appeal or persuasion, and punctiliously reducing the supposed sufferer’s guard.
What makes Valentin’s case particularly unnerving is that lots of the ladies whom investigators allege he victimized doubtless nonetheless do not know against the law occurred. Detectives are working to establish all of these they consider he could have focused. Valentin’s filming and photographing of driver’s licenses has given investigators a spot to start out. They’re additionally reconstructing identities from digital breadcrumbs: exchanges on a relationship app, stray messages.
For lots of the ladies who’ve been contacted by investigators, their fuzzy reminiscence of the evening carried an easier clarification: They assumed that they’d merely had an excessive amount of to drink. They awoke disoriented—typically ashamed—not sure of how they’d gotten dwelling. And regardless of the proof that has accrued, officers say that many potential victims stay reluctant to press fees: cautious of police, skeptical of authorities, or surprised by the chance that what they bear in mind as an overindulgent evening out was one thing a lot worse.
Had it not been for the hazy recollections of 1 alleged sufferer, investigators say, Valentin’s alleged crimes wouldn’t have come to mild. However her account allowed detectives to retrace her steps to the Alexandria bar and the surveillance footage. There on the display screen, the investigators advised us, was a person stirring one thing right into a drink, affected person and methodical, in a crowded room the place nobody observed a factor.
Marie-Rose Sheinerman and Isabel Ruehl contributed reporting for this story.