Rape charges dropped against former hero cop

Citing insufficient evidence, prosecutors have dropped rape and related charges against former Philadelphia Police Officer Richard DeCoatsworth, who was released from jail Monday.

As a rookie cop in 2007, DeCoatsworth was hailed as a hero after being shot in the face while on duty and pursuing his assailant despite his injuries.

In May 2013, after an armed standoff at his Port Richmond house, he was arrested and charged with raping two prostitutes.

But on Monday, the District Attorney's Office released a statement saying it had conducted an intense follow-up investigation and determined there was not enough evidence to proceed in the alleged rapes. It dropped all charges in the cases of both women.

DeCoatsworth, 28, still faces charges in a domestic-violence incident involving his girlfriend.

Defense attorney L. George Parry said the two women in the dropped cases had credibility issues, and contradicted themselves and each other "on absolutely critical points" in statements to police and in testimony before a grand jury.

DeCoatsworth initially pleaded guilty to several lesser charges in the cases - simple assault, promoting prostitution, and drug possession.

But he withdrew his guilty plea in April with the permission of Common Pleas Court Judge Charles Ehrlich. The trial had been set for Nov. 3, with Parry representing him.

The proposed plea agreement would have spared DeCoatsworth time in prison, but Parry said Monday that his client regretted the guilty plea "from the second he entered it."

"He felt rushed into it," Parry said. His client "insisted he had done none of it," he added.

He said DeCoatsworth and his family had been "under tremendous strain" while he was in jail, where he had been held since his arrest.

On Monday, Ehrlich released DeCoatsworth on bail.

The domestic-violence charges against him will proceed to trial.

"If I don't see that complainant [the girlfriend] in this courtroom, there are going to be problems," the judge said Monday, and advised DeCoatsworth and his family members to avoid discussing the case with her.

DeCoatsworth could have gone to prison for decades if convicted of rape.

After he was shot in 2007, he was feted as a hero, and invited to sit at Michelle Obama's side during her husband's first State of the Union address in 2009.

In the years after, he was involved in two shootings - one in which he wounded a motorcyclist who police said had raced down the street at him, and another in which police said his gun went off in a struggle with a mentally ill man. That man was later killed by another officer.

DeCoatsworth retired on disability in 2011.