Nassau police officer John Ingardia pleads not guilty to charges of rape, harassment over alleged 2021 assault

The lawyer for a Nassau County police officer charged with raping a former lover described the alleged victim in court Wednesday as “vindictive” and disgruntled over their previous child custody dispute.

Officer John Ingardia, 29, pleaded not guilty in Nassau Criminal Court to third-degree rape and harassment charges related to the alleged September 2021 attack.

Ingardia allegedly became violent with his former romantic partner during sex after the woman said she repeatedly told him to stop, according to a felony complaint.

The officer, who remains on regular duty, stayed silent during the arraignment hearing and declined to comment afterward. The police department has declined to comment on the case.

According to a felony complaint, the alleged victim told investigating officers she had consented to sex, but Ingardia became rough with her and refused to stop after she protested. The woman said she suffered bruising during the alleged nonconsensual portion of the encounter, according to the complaint.

Ingardia's lawyer, William Petrillo, said the charges were bogus.

“This is a vindictive woman making a false complaint in order to disgrace and destroy a man, destroy his reputation and destroy his career at the expense of a child,” Petrillo told the court.

The officer and the woman carried on a monthslong relationship in 2021, Petrillo said. During that time, they would have sex at her home and afterward, Ingardia would leave.

In December 2021, the woman informed Ingardia she was pregnant and he subsequently tried to end the relationship, Petrillo said.

While she was pregnant, the officer took the woman to doctor’s appointments, he said. She gave birth in August of 2022. That July, the lawyer said, Ingardia had filed in family court for partial custody once the child was born. Later, as it became apparent Ingardia would prevail, his lawyer said, the woman grew upset. 

She only reported the alleged rape a year later after Ingardia was awarded partial custody, Petrillo said. The lawyer also said in court Wednesday that a day after the woman spoke to police, she had sex with his client and continued to proposition him for months.

Ingardia, an eight-year veteran of the police department, currently sees the child, now 17 months old, three days and nights out of the week, according to his lawyer.

A doctor who is a family friend of the mother diagnosed the girl with cystic fibrosis with pulmonary manifestation, but subsequent medical examinations have not supported this conclusion, Petrillo said in court.

“It is now in dispute that the child does have cystic fibrosis,” Petrillo said.

At the arraignment, State Supreme Court Justice Robert McDonald rejected a request by Assistant District Attorney Mila Kelly for a temporary order of protection preventing Ingardia from contacting or going near the alleged victim.

McDonald vacated a previous stay-away order against the officer earlier this year over what the justice called a “frivolous claim” in which the woman tried to have him arrested during a child custody exchange at a Nassau Police precinct.

The justice noted he rarely disposes of protective orders, but would not consent to reinstating this one because of credibility questions he had about the complainant.

“An order of protection can be a shield, but it can also be a sword,” McDonald said, calling the case “basically a custody matter that’s been brewing for months.”

The district attorney’s office did not dispute the ruling.

Ingardia, assigned to the Bureau of Special Operations, is due back in court on Jan. 9.