Former Oakland police Officer Terryl Smith was formally charged in Alameda County Thursday with five misdemeanors for allegedly accessing confidential law enforcement databases and searching the name of a woman at the center of a far-reaching sexual exploitation case.
He's the sixth current or former peace officer to face charges that range from felony obstruction of justice and oral copulation with a minor to various misdemeanors. Alameda County prosecutors are still expected to file charges against a seventh defendant -- OPD Officer Warit Utappa.
Smith resigned from the Oakland Police Department in May, right around the same time OPD internal affairs investigators brought a more serious case to prosecutors in neighboring Contra Costa County. But, according to the East Bay Times, the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office determined that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Smith for attempted forcible sodomy with the teenage daughter of an OPD dispatcher at the center of the case. The now 19-year-old woman, Jasmine Abuslin, was known at the time by the pseudonym Celeste Guap.
That alleged encounter on Feb. 1 in Richmond's Wildcat Canyon Regional Park came between Smith's second and third search of confidential police databases. He allegedly turned the search results over to Abuslin.
The Richmond teenager has said she had sex with some 30 law enforcement officers from at least seven Bay Area agencies, some before she turned 18. She has said all of the officers knew she worked in the sex trade and sometimes traded favors in exchange for sex, including tipping her off to prostitution stings and providing her with confidential police records.