December 5, 2008
Woman alleges trooper forced sex
State Police begin two investigations
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia State Police are investigating a state trooper accused of rape by a Charleston woman.

The woman alleges that she was drunk and forced to have sex with the trooper last month after he followed her to a friend's house where she was staying.

"I was nervous and scared because I didn't know what he was going to do to me," the woman said in an interview Thursday. She and her lawyer, Mike Clifford, also showed a Gazette reporter part of a videotape that apparently shows the woman and a man wearing a State Police uniform inside the woman's residence.

State Police superintendent Col. David Lemmon said the trooper is on restricted duty pending the outcome of the investigations. State Police Capt. G.A. Ingold confirmed he is conducting an internal investigation, and Lt. L.A. Bailes confirmed he is conducting a criminal investigation on the matter.

The woman, who is not being identified because she is an alleged rape victim, said she left The Vault, a bar in downtown Charleston, about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 16. She and a bar employee were driving to a restaurant when she was stopped by the trooper and pulled into the parking lot of Smiley's Restaurant and Lounge in Jefferson.

The woman said the trooper told her she was driving in the middle of the road, then performed a field sobriety test on her. She asked him if she was going to get a DUI, and he told her he didn't think she was that drunk. Then he asked her to get in his car, and after they talked for a short time, the trooper told her passenger to call a friend and get a ride home.

The trooper and the woman sat in the parking lot for about 15 minutes, she said. Then he allegedly asked her to unbutton her coat and told her she was attractive.

She said she started trying to deflect the trooper's interest, but he told her she was going to follow him in her car to another spot, where she would give him a kiss. He told her not to call anyone, she said.

They drove in separate cars to another spot, where the trooper, who is in his early 20s, began kissing and fondling her, she said.

"I went in survival mode," she said Thursday. "I couldn't call anybody because he was the police."

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