The 38-year-old Bronx cop and preacher accused of raping a 16-year-old girl he met at his church seduced his naive victim for months — then lost interest in her when she turned a year older, friends of the victim’s family said Wednesday.
“He left her when she celebrated her 17th birthday,” a friend of the victim’s family said of NYPD Officer Vladimir Sosa. The friend wished to remain anonymous.
“(The girl’s family) is very disturbed by all of this.”
Sosa, 38, was arraigned on rape, sex abuse and child endangerment charges Tuesday for having consensual sex with the girl, who is 22 years younger than he is, at least three times last year.
The sordid affair was revealed last month when the teen’s mother found incriminating texts on her daughter’s cellphone from the 46th Precinct cop, officials said.
The teen and her mom were too upset to speak Wednesday, family friends said.
“Right now she (the victim) is in a very bad state,” a friend said.
Sosa, who was released on his own recognizance, also remained in seclusion Wednesday. No one would answer the door at the home he shares with his mother at the Bronx River Houses.
Neighbor Maria Torres, 42, was stunned to hear about Sosa’s arrest.
“It really is scary because he lives so close,” Torres said. “This is a person I would see every day, that my kids saw every day.
“Every morning he would say, ‘God bless your daughters, they’re beautiful,’ and ‘God’s going to help you’ and things like that,” she said. “Everybody who lives on the floor is shocked. No one could understand how it could be this guy.”
Sosa is an evangelist affiliated with the Iglesia Metodista Libre El Remanente on E. 180th St. in Tremont, the Bronx.
He met his teenage victim as he ran a youth program at the church, officials said.
The church remained closed Wednesday. Several calls to the church’s pastor were not returned.
Sosa has also traveled to other houses of worship and has given sermons in both Baltimore and Allentown, Pa., colleagues said.
“I’ve heard him preach,” said Ismaldo Sosa, who is not related to the cop. “He cares about the souls of people being saved.
“Based on what I know, I would say the (allegations) are not true,” he said. “I don’t think he would do that … but everybody’s tempted.”
With Edgar Sandoval
