L.A. Now Live: 2 LAPD officers accused of forcing women to have sex

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Times staff writers Joel Rubin and Jack Leonard will join L.A. Now Live at 9 a.m. to discuss the Los Angeles Police Department investigation into accusations that two officers lured women into an unmarked car and forced them to perform sex acts.

Detectives from the LAPD’s internal affairs unit suspect that Officers Luis Valenzuela and James Nichols targeted at least four women whom they had arrested previously or who worked for them as informants, according to a search warrant reviewed by The Times. The two repeatedly used the threat of jail to get women into their car and drove them to secluded areas where one of the officers demanded sex while the other kept watch, the warrant alleges. Until recently, Valenzuela and Nichols worked together as narcotics officers in the Hollywood Division.

Investigators have identified four women who encountered the two and made similar, independent accusations against them, according to the warrant.

Valenzuela, a 15-year department veteran, and Nichols, a 12-year veteran, were expected to be assigned to their homes pending the outcome of the probe, the head of the internal affairs unit said.