Port Authority officer busted for illicit relationship with 19-year-old homeless woman
A Port Authority Bus Terminal police officer, assigned to help at-risk youths in the Midtown transit center, instead launched an “inappropriate” relationship with a homeless teen after meeting her on the job, prosecutors charged Friday.
Officer Telly Simmonds, 47, falsified work documents to hide his connections with the 19-year-old after their paths crossed while he worked the busy 42nd St. building in early 2018, authorities charge. He was working at the time with the PA police Youth Services Unit — established to identify runaway or at-risk youths.
Simmonds allegedly paid for an April 1, 2018, stay in a Times Square hotel with the teen using a Port Authority voucher meant for work-related duty only, officials said, and faces a sentence of 2⅓-7 years behind bars if convicted.
“Taking advantage of a young, at-risk woman seeking help is one of the most despicable things an officer of the law can do,” said state Attorney General Letitia James. “Simmonds allegedly used the power of his badge ... in order to engage in and conceal an inappropriate relationship.”
The officer pleaded not guilty Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court on felony charges of tampering with public records and offering a false instrument for filing, along with four misdemeanor count of official misconduct.
Officials said he was removed from active policing work since the start of the investigation.
After Simmonds took down the teen’s name, address, phone number and other personal information at their initial meeting, the pair began texting regularly before their hotel stay, authorities said.
After she relocated to a Philadelphia shelter, the cop contacted her again in an effort to bring her back to New York, officials said. He allegedly filed bogus April 18, 2018, paperwork claiming that he met the woman that morning in the bus terminal and provided the teen with a subway MetroCard.
Simmonds instead drove to Philadelphia after his shift, showed his Port Authority police ID to shelter workers and claimed he was on official duty before driving the teen back to a shelter in the Bronx, prosecutors say.
The Philadelphia agency contacted the FBI, where officials reached out to the Port Authority — with an investigation launched by the New York attorney general’s office.
