"I made a bad decision," Snavely, now the police chief in Hinton, said several times in his testimony.

Charleston resident Julie Fato says Snavely forced her to have sex with him after pulling her over on a traffic stop and then following her to the house where she was staying. The trial began Monday in Kanawha Circuit Judge James C. Stucky's courtroom.

Lonnie Simmons, one of Fato's lawyers, said in his opening statement that Snavely took advantage of a woman whom he knew was drunk.

"This case addresses the larger issue of police abuse," he said. "What she seeks is the only thing our system allows us . . . to recover monetary damages."

Snavely's lawyer, Lou Ann Cyrus, told the jury that while Snavely certainly made a mistake, he didn't force Fato into anything.

"She was the aggressor," Cyrus said. "She went out of her way to have sex with him."

Cyrus told jurors they didn't have to agree with what Snavely and Fato did, only that it was consensual. "This is a court of law," she said, "not a court of morals."

With Snavely on the stand, Mike Clifford, another of Fato's lawyers, showed the jury a video of Snavely stopping her car early in the morning on Nov. 16, 2008. The video starts with Snavely parked along the side of the road. He pulls out after Fato's car passes, then pulls her over after she clearly swerves over the center double line.

On the video, Fato said she had one drink.

"How big of a drink was it, a gallon?" Snavely asked her on the video.

He then gets her out of the car and had her perform several field sobriety tests. She followed his instructions, although not precisely.

On Monday, Snavely testified that he didn't think Fato was drunk but told her she should get a ride home.

He said that, once she was in the car, she started to flirt with him and tried to kiss him. He said he wouldn't let her because there were a lot of people near where they were parked.

"So you didn't have any problem kissing her," Clifford asked. "You just didn't want to do it in public."

"Initially, yes," Snavely said, "but that was poor judgment. I made a bad decision."

He said Fato got back into her car and he followed her to a more secluded spot, where she got back in his car.

"As soon as she got in the car," Snavely said, "she was coming on heavy."

After they kissed in the car, Snavely said, Fato suggested she follow him to her residence, where she could make him breakfast.

Once at her house, Snavely said, Fato introduced him to one of the people she was staying with, then they went to her room. After she went to the bathroom, he said, they had sex.

After a few minutes, Snavely said, he realized he shouldn't be there.

"I took into consideration that the State Police probably didn't want me to be having sex on duty," Snavely said. "I realized I made a bad decision."

He said he cooperated with the State Police's internal investigation into the incident, once it learned about it through Fato. He said several internal charges were filed against him by the State Police, along with a disciplinary recommendation that he be fired.

Snavely said he was told that, if he appealed, the same people that recommended he be fired the first time would hear that appeal, so there was no point.

That's when he turned in his letter of resignation.

"You didn't want to resign did you," Clifford asked.

"No," Snavely replied.

The State Police originally was named in the lawsuit, but was dismissed as a defendant.

Snavely will take the stand again Tuesday.

Reach Gary Harki at gha...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5163.