David Aceveda - The Rape Incident, Alliance With Vic, and Mayoral Status

The Rape Incident, Alliance With Vic, and Mayoral Status

During a gang bust of a home, Aceveda remained behind after uniformed officers left. The public reason was to search the home more closely, but he was actually hoping to find evidence to incriminate Vic Mackey. However, two gang members, Juan Lozano and Ricky, returned to the home and overpowered Aceveda. Restraining him and taking his weapon, Juan forced Aceveda to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint, taking a photo using a camera phone for posterity. It appeared that Aceveda was going to be killed, but the arrival of Mackey and the Strike Team scared the two off.

Aceveda followed Ricky over a period of several months, killing him when he robbed a Korean grocery store. He recovered the cell phone with the picture in the process, and eventually caught Juan. Though Juan threatened to go public with the picture if he was not released Aceveda called his bluff, suggesting that Juan was not tech-savvy enough to have copied the picture to a computer before Aceveda deleted it from the phone. Juan's reaction to this suggestion put Aceveda's mind to rest regarding the picture, thinking that all copies had been destroyed. To further put his mind at ease Aceveda threatened Juan's family to dissuade him from even talking about the incident, before putting him in prison. However, the incident scarred Aceveda mentally for months afterward. He became estranged from his family and eventually began having a violent affair with a prostitute, re-enacting rape fantasies with intensifying brutality until he eventually pulled a gun, essentially attempting to re-enact his own rape. Horrified, Aceveda cut off relations with the hooker and seemed to make peace with himself.

Juan, wanting revenge, contacted Aceveda through his girlfriend, who attempted to get Aceveda to acknowledge the rape by taping a conversation of her threatening to go public about the incident. Aceveda, however, predicted this move and claimed ignorance about the event before taking the tape recorder from her. The fact that Juan's girlfriend had tried to gain proof of the event by taping Aceveda's acknowledgement of it emboldened Aceveda in his belief that the photo no longer existed, despite Juan's claims. Despite this setback Juan continued in his threats to go public, claiming that the councilman no longer had any leverage over him as his grandmother had died and his cousin had been deported, both now being outside the realm of Aceveda's influence. Fearing the damage it would do to his image, Aceveda made a deal with imprisoned drug lord Antwon Mitchell to have Juan killed in exchange for his freedom (although Antwon's freedom was officially part of a deal with the DEA to inform against Salvadoran drug lord Bonilla). The two did fulfill their own parts of the bargain, though Mitchell was imprisoned again after Captain Monica Rawling sacrificed her career to keep Mitchell behind bars. It seems Aceveda has put the incident behind him.

In Season 5, Aceveda worked with IAD Lt. Jon Kavanaugh to put away the Strike Team once and for all. However, after Kavanaugh witnessed several suspicious meetings between Vic and Aceveda, IAD's investigation into the Strike Team spread to the councilman as well. Kavanaugh began to dig into the highly coincidental meetings Aceveda had with Juan and Antwon just before Juan was killed. Kavanaugh's incarceration in Season 6 gave the impression that Aceveda's secret was safe, however, this was not to be. A Mexican real estate developer named Cruz Pezuela provided the camera phone picture to Vic so that he could blackmail Aceveda into keeping his job. Calling Vic's bluff, Aceveda released his lawyer on Vic threatening the loss of his pension and a long legal struggle ahead. Hearing of this, Vic returns to Cruz and gets the memory card and all of the photos for favors down the line once gets his job back. Vic again approaches Aceveda with the new information and Aceveda agrees to try to help Vic keep his job and in turn Vic later gives Aceveda the memory card and all of the original pictures. Vic and Aceveda form an alliance to find out what the corrupt developer was brewing.

The scope of the operation stunned both of them; Pezuela was helping the Mexican drug cartels buy into Farmington, and planned on using various businesses as fronts for money laundering, drug trafficking, and prostitution. Aceveda received the memory card as a symbol of trust between him and Mackey, and the two decided to investigate Pezuela, in hopes of shutting his operation down.

Later, Aceveda met with Vic, who had walked out on a Department Review Board hearing and stolen a car full of blackmail material from one of Pezuela's couriers. Aceveda was shocked to learn the dirty secrets of many of the most influential people in Southern California, including public officials, mayoral aides, and the heads of special interest groups. Vic then asked him, "Is this enough to save my job?" Aceveda responded with a look of assent. Letting David take his own vehicle, Vic taunted Pezuela's courier and drove away.

As the series would come to a close, Aceveda seemed poised to win the Los Angeles mayoral election. In addition, he and Vic continued to collaborate in order to destroy both Pezuela and the drug cartel ruled by his psychopathic boss, Guillermo Beltran. Their friendship ended, however, when Vic destroyed Aceveda's attempts to blackmail ICE Agent Olivia Murray with information from Pezuela's box.

After Vic arranged an immunity deal with ICE, Aceveda was enraged that Vic could never be prosecuted for any of his crimes. The two collaborated one last time, however, in order to arrange the arrest of Beltran. While speaking over the phone, Aceveda expressed satisfaction that ICE had realized that, "they have a reptile working for them." Mackey, however, reminded Aceveda about his prior statement about "respecting each other's endgames."