INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — A former Kokomo Police Department patrol officer who used his badge, his squad car and a runaway call to sexually assault a 14-year-old girl, and then tried to erase the evidence, has been sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. Sinmi Asomuyide, 33, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, followed by three years of supervised release. The sentence was imposed by Chief District Judge James R. Sweeney II and announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office on Thursday, November 5. The victim is identified in court records only as 'Minor #1'; she is not named, in line with the protection given to minor victims.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Indiana (DOJ)
In June 2026, after a five-day jury trial, Asomuyide was convicted of deprivation of rights under color of law, witness tampering and destruction of records. Jurors found that he wilfully deprived the victim, then 14, of her constitutional rights by sexually assaulting her, and the verdict included findings of kidnapping and abusive sexual contact with a child under 16. Jurors also found that he lied to Indiana State Police investigators to cover up the assault — denying sexual contact with the victim and lying about other corroborating evidence — and destroyed records, including deleting the messaging account he had used to communicate with her. At the time of the conviction he faced up to life in prison.
What the evidence showed: a runaway call turned into a trap
According to court documents and the evidence presented at trial, Asomuyide, then 31, first encountered the girl on June 30, 2024, while serving as a Kokomo Police Department (KPD) patrol officer. Earlier that day her father had called 911 to report her as a runaway. Asomuyide and another KPD officer responded and located her at the home of another underage girl. After taking her into custody, Asomuyide transported her to the Kinsey Youth Center in Kokomo.
As he entered the youth center's sallyport garage, Asomuyide turned off his body-worn camera in violation of KPD policy. He then took the girl's cellphone and used it to call his personal TextNow phone number before questioning her about her sexual history. During a pat-down search he discovered a vape pen in her back pocket, and after entering the youth center he escorted her to a side room and told her he would contact her later to return the vape pen.
The girl was eventually picked up from the youth center by a family friend at her father's direction. As she left, she sent Asomuyide the username for one of her social media accounts, and he responded by requesting her TikTok username. The two continued communicating by text message through the evening while he finished his shift, and, prosecutors said, she remained under the impression that he intended to return her vape pen.
Later that evening, Asomuyide returned to the KPD station and requested overtime, saying he would be finishing paperwork from 10:00 p.m. to midnight — but instead left the station to pick the girl up. He arrived at the family friend's apartment in his KPD uniform and demanded to speak to her privately, saying he needed to determine where she should stay. Instead, he handcuffed her in the back of his squad car and drove to an empty warehouse parking lot, as his squad car's GPS data later showed. There he uncuffed her, moved her to the front seat and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards he put the handcuffs back on and drove her back to the apartment complex.
DNA, a deleted account, and lies to state police
The girl reported the assault to family members and to law enforcement, prompting the Indiana State Police (ISP) to open an investigation. A forensic examination of Asomuyide's patrol vehicle found a dried semen stain on the center console that matched his DNA. About a week after the assault, ISP detectives interviewed him: he falsely claimed he had never provided the girl with his phone number — suggesting she may have overheard him reciting it to a Kinsey Youth Center employee — and falsely asserted that she had contacted him on a work phone, even though KPD officers are not issued work phones. A forensic examination of his own cellphone showed that within hours of the assault he had searched phrases including 'how to delete text me account' and 'TextNow delete account.'
A prior allegation he hid from Kokomo
Prosecutors also laid out an earlier episode that Kokomo never heard about honestly. Before joining KPD, Asomuyide was employed as a police officer at the Portsmouth Police Department in Virginia, and was forced to resign after an allegation that he had sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old while off duty — an allegation, not a conviction. When he later applied to the Kokomo Police Department, prosecutors said, he misrepresented what had happened, stating that he had been forced to resign from Portsmouth because he was 'hanging out' with a 17-year-old girl who had told him she was 19.
"The Department of Justice takes civil rights abuses seriously, including those committed by the small minority of police officers that betray public trust," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. "This defendant will be held accountable for the kidnapping and sexual abuse of a child. We hope the victim will be able to recover and prosper despite this horrific episode." U.S. Attorney Tom Wheeler for the Southern District of Indiana said: "This defendant exploited the badge in one of the worst ways imaginable. What makes these crimes particularly disturbing is that he used the very tools, training, and authority entrusted to him as a police officer not only to assault a vulnerable child, but to try to conceal it. The evidence told a different story, and today's sentence sends a clear message that no one can use the authority of the badge as a shield from accountability."
FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. O'Malley said: "The very people entrusted with protecting children must never become the ones who victimize them. This defendant preyed on a 14-year-old girl and then attempted to cover up his crimes." Captain Ron Galaviz, the Indiana State Police's chief public information officer, said the ISP 'aggressively investigates crimes committed against children, especially when perpetrated by individuals placed in positions of immense trust,' and remains committed to holding such abusers accountable.
The victim in this case was 14 years old. She is identified in all court and Justice Department records only as 'Minor #1' and is not named in this report. The earlier Portsmouth, Virginia episode is an allegation described by prosecutors at sentencing, not a conviction.
What happens next
The case was investigated by the FBI's Indianapolis Division and the Indiana State Police, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Blackett, Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Anita Channapati and former Senior Sex Crimes Counsel Tara Allison, with Victim Witness Coordinator Stephanie Lloyd supporting the victim's family. Asomuyide, who faced up to life in prison, will now serve his 40-year sentence in federal custody, followed by three years of supervised release. The case is one of the most severe recent federal civil-rights sentences for an on-duty police assault in Indiana, and it closes — at the trial-court level — a case that began with a father's 911 call asking police to bring his runaway daughter home safely.