Multiple women accused Setty of engaging in sexual acts without their consent, and one woman said she felt Setty would not let her leave his house unless she engaged in sexual activity, according to investigative records from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office Bureau of Criminal Investigation obtained by this news organization.
Chadrick, who was appointed a special prosecutor in the case to avoid a conflict of interest with local officials, told this newspaper that while the evidence supported allegations that “sex offenses” occurred, the specific details of the incidents ruled out filing felony charges for sex crimes.
Chadrick said felony sex offenses in Ohio can be filed when suspects use force, or the victim is a minor, or when there is a special relationship between the parties, like if the suspect was a teacher or coach and the victim was a student or player, or if a police officer engaged in sexual activity with a person in custody.
Although Setty is a police officer, he did not use his law enforcement position to coerce victims into engaging in sexual activity, Chadrick said.
“This is one of the difficulties in these types of cases — there is a huge drop off from felony offenses to misdemeanor sexual imposition,” he told this news organization.
Attorney Antony “Tony” Abboud, partner of the Dayton law firm Gounaris Abboud, is representing Setty. He has not responded to Dayton Daily News requests for comment. In March 2023, he told Ohio BCI Senior Special Agent John Rodriguez that his client denied the allegations and declined to be interviewed, according to the BCI report.
Setty has not yet been sentenced. Chadrick said Setty could face up to 150 days of jail time or probation, but that he has not discussed sentencing with the victims, so he doesn’t have a recommendation yet.
Facebook group chat
Setty was “relieved of duty” in late March 2023 after Lt. Col. Eric Henderson, assistant chief and deputy director of the Dayton Police Department, was notified by an administrative sergeant of screenshots of social media posts in which two women accused Setty of sexual wrongdoing. Because of the severity of the allegations, Dayton police asked BCI to conduct a criminal investigation.
According to the investigative records, the allegations were posted online in a private Facebook group called “Are We Dating the Same Guy? Cincinnati/Dayton.”
The group chat allows women to share information about men they date to try to identify cheaters and others who engage in bad behavior.
One woman in a post said that Setty continued to perform a sex act on her even after she told him no, according to screenshots in the investigative report.
“Afterwards I said, ‘You literally just raped me’ and he just laughed,” the post states.
Another woman wrote, “No isn’t an answer he will take.”
Women speak with investigators
Rodriguez, the lead BCI investigator in the case, identified and interviewed multiple women from the Facebook group who posted about Setty.
Five women said they met Setty through dating websites or apps. The women said Setty engaged in unwanted sexual acts outside Dayton, but within Montgomery County, either at Setty’s Farmersville house or the women’s residences, interviews indicated.
In the online group, two women began communicating and discovered they had been dating Setty from October 2022 through March 2023, though both had been told by Setty they were exclusive, according to the posts.
Four of the women said they had consensual sex but that on more than one occasion — often after the women had been drinking — Setty reportedly performed a sex act that they did not consent to and he did not stop when told to. At least two of the women experienced bleeding as a result, the report stated.
The women did not report the incidents to law enforcement and a few recounted to Rodriguez how they felt manipulated into feeling the incidents were a misunderstanding, according to investigative records.
One woman told the BCI special agent that Setty engaged in a sex act that she did not consent to and he told her to relax and that “she’s taking it well,” investigative records state. She said she cried on the drive home and she told Setty via text that what he did to her was wrong.
The woman said they kept talking via text, and that Setty promised that it would never happen again. But the woman told BCI that they had sex again after that and he once again engaged in a nonconsensual sexual act. She said she told Setty he raped her and she never wanted to see him again, the investigative report states.
Another woman told BCI that she performed a sex act on Setty at his home in early 2023 even though she did not want to, because she felt she did not have a choice and it was the only way she could leave, an investigative report states.
A different woman told investigator Rodriguez that she believes she was sexually violated by Setty in September 2022. She said she was very intoxicated and she does not remember what happened but she woke up in pain.
Reasons for specific court charges
Court documents show that Setty is accused of “restraining another of her liberty” on or about Feb. 1, 2021, through April 1, 2021.
The disorderly conduct charges involve incidents against two women, one on Sept. 25, 2022, and the second on Feb. 10, 2023, in which Setty reportedly created “a condition that was physically offensive to persons or that presented a risk of physical harm to persons or property, by any act that served no lawful and reasonable purpose of the offender, and the defendant persisted in disorderly conduct after reasonable warning or request to desist,” the bill of information stated.
Assistant Prosecutor Chadrick said his office reviewed cases for five potential victims, and the three charges that were filed reflect crimes he committed against three victims. Chadrick said one woman who was interviewed by BCI did not want to pursue charges, and the accusations of another woman were not part of the criminal bill of information, though she planned to cooperate if the case went to a grand jury.
Chadrick said his office potentially could have pursued a third-degree misdemeanor charge of sexual imposition against Setty, but the victims were OK with pursuing other charges of the same level if Setty would plead guilty to them.
“That is why the charges do not include sex offenses despite the evidence supporting that sex offenses occurred,” Chadrick said. “Also, that is why the charges do not perfectly match the conduct because the victims were interested in him being held accountable, but were not necessarily looking for any particular charges. What he did was offensive to all of them and that is what disorderly conduct covers and for one victim she felt like because of how he positioned her and the size difference between them, she could not escape the offensive conduct, which is the unlawful restraint. Again, not perfect fits, but charges that the victims were okay with to resolve the case in a manner consistent with their wishes.”
Setty’s background with Dayton PD
Setty’s Dayton police personnel file includes nearly a dozen written commendations over the past dozen years. The most recent was in the fall of 2022 at Liberty High School, for working with another DPD officer to wrestle to the ground a former student who came onto school grounds with a loaded gun in his bag.
Setty, who was promoted to the rank of sergeant in February 2016, and two other officers were involved in a shooting in December 2020 that resulted in the death of 37-year-old Donald Saunders after police responded to a domestic violence call. Saunders was shot at least four times after he pointed a gun at Setty’s chest at an apartment in the 1700 block of Rangeley Avenue, according to a commendation Setty received.
Setty was placed on administrative leave in late March 2023 due to allegations against him, according to a Dayton police spokesperson. Setty will remain on administrative leave and an administrative investigation will be conducted at the conclusion of any court proceedings, the spokesperson said.
“As this is an ongoing investigation, we will provide further updates as they become available,” the spokesperson said. ‘We appreciate the community’s patience and cooperation during this time.”
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