A Chicago cop and mixed martial arts fighter is facing dismissal from the police department after investigators found he sexually assaulted a girlfriend multiple times, new records show.
Chicago Police Officer Alberto Rodriguez met the woman around July 2018 when he was invited to her 18th birthday party by her brother, whom Rodriguez knew from an MMA gym, according to a report released this week by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
The two began talking and were in a relationship by the following spring, the woman told COPA.
It soon turned abusive and ended when police had to rescue the woman from Rodriguez’s home in August 2019 after she was held against her will, COPA said. She was 19 at the time.
COPA called for Rodriguez’s firing, finding his actions “egregious.” The oversight panel also found his version of events wasn’t credible.
“Officer Rodriguez’s actions caused physical and emotional harm … and are a discredit to the Department,” COPA wrote. “Furthermore, he took no accountability for any of his actions. Sexual assault and physical abuse cannot and should not be tolerated by the Department.”
A criminal investigation was initiated, according to a letter from former Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, but it doesn’t appear Rodriguez was ever charged with a crime.
He couldn’t be reached for comment.
On Aug. 5, 2019, the night before the woman was set to leave for a weekslong trip to Mexico, the pair went to dinner and returned to Rodriguez’s apartment, COPA said. When she told him she wanted to leave, he allegedly pushed her against a wall, took her keys, raped her and told her she’d “get used to it.”
Then on Aug. 23, 2019, after she returned from her trip, the two went to dinner again and Rodriguez bought her cocktails, knowing she was underage, COPA said.
Rodriguez then drove them to his home and raped her, according to COPA. She called her mother to pick her up in Wicker Park, but Rodriguez allegedly wouldn’t let her leave his apartment.
When the police showed up, Rodriguez refused to open the door, COPA said. Officers eventually got a key from Rodriguez’s father, who lived in the unit downstairs. Rodriguez was handcuffed and questioned, but not arrested, according to COPA.
Rodriguez had little professional fighting experience, going 3-1 by February 2022. But in an interview posted to the website of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the country’s premier mixed martial arts organization, he said he planned to stay on the police force if he got called up to the UFC.
“I know that it’s obviously a very tough job, very stressful, and that’s always going to be there, and it’s only getting tougher with the times that are passing by, but I think that if I was ever to get into the UFC I would keep my job and keep being a good police officer and give as much back as I could,” Rodriguez said.
He now faces firing after Snelling agreed with COPA’s findings related to the alleged assaults.
Rodriguez is currently assigned to the department’s alternate response section and remains stripped of his police powers.