A Dating-App Nightmare

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Timothy Valentin found his dates the way so many people find each other nowadays: Hinge. Plenty of Fish. Bumble. Match.com. He had a profile you might swipe right on some dull Tuesday night—well groomed, fit, and happy to meet in a reassuringly public place, like the neighborhood bar. Nothing heavy, nothing untoward. In person, he told tales of his work with the FBI. He was professional, even reassuring, and gentlemanly, insistent on buying the drinks.

Except Valentin would then offer just one more drink and drug his dates senseless, officials familiar with a widening investigation into his behavior claim. As the women drifted into oblivion, they have alleged to cops, he would help them into his car with an offer to grab a nightcap, then film himself raping them. He left little trace: His victims rarely had any recollection of what had happened, officials claim. They simply thought that they had met a nice man in a crowded, public place and drank more than they should have.

Last April, one of Valentin’s alleged victims awoke with the conviction that something was wrong, according to court documents. The night before felt blurred and disorienting. She had left the bar with Valentin and recalled getting in his car—the place that officials claim was the locus of his crimes. Believing that she had been violated, she went to Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department. There she learned that Valentin was no FBI agent. He was a former decorated officer of the very department now tasked with investigating him.

In December, authorities in Alexandria, Virginia, arrested Valentin on charges including rape, sodomy, and altering food or beverages. As investigators pursued the case, they uncovered a huge amount of evidence—digital records, personal effects, and testimony—that suggests that Valentin may have carried out similar crimes across the mid-Atlantic, people familiar with the case told me. Today, Valentin was charged or indicted in multiple additional cases in Virginia and Maryland, and investigators asked for more potential victims to contact law enforcement. Authorities believe that they have identified more than a dozen victims to date, the people familiar with the case said.