CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A former Dunbar police officer, who is serving a federal prison sentence for illegally coercing a woman to have sex with him on duty, has been sued by another woman for allegedly harassing her at home.

 In December, Raymond O. "Dell" Conley, 40, pleaded guilty in federal court to violating a woman's civil rights by illegally searching her without probable cause, then using the small amount of marijuana he found to convince her to have sex with him.

Four months later, U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston sentenced Conley to a year in prison, the maximum possible sentence. At Conley's sentencing, prosecutors indicated that, after Conley pleaded guilty, other women came forward with allegations that he had harassed them.

In the lawsuit, filed last week in Kanawha Circuit Court, Megan Lanham alleges that Conley repeatedly made unwelcome sexual advances to her at her Dunbar home.

Conley insisted that Lanham show him all her "identifying marks," specifically tattoos on her buttocks and another near her pelvis, according to the lawsuit. He would have her walk up the stairs in front of him, and make sexually suggestive comments, the lawsuit maintains.

In addition, Conley told Lanham that members of the Dunbar Police Department had found "marijuana specks" during an earlier search of her home, which meant that he could enter her home whenever he wanted without permission, the lawsuit states.

"Conley [told her] that he flushed this 'evidence' and that she should go out to dinner with him and cooperate with him and do what he wanted her to do and he would keep her out of trouble," the lawsuit states.

When Lanham rebuffed Conley, telling him that she had a boyfriend and she wanted Conley to stop coming to her home, Conley and two fellow officers began pressuring her landlord to evict her, the lawsuit alleges.

Two Dunbar officers, identified by the last names Elliott and Moss, are named as co-defendants in the lawsuit, as is the Dunbar Police Department.

Under instructions from Conley, the department sent a letter to Lanham's landlord accusing Lanham of operating a meth lab, although she had never been arrested or charged by Dunbar police, according to the lawsuit.

When she complained about the letter, members of the Dunbar Police Department arrested her, in front of her son, on June 13, 2008, on charges of simple possession of marijuana, according to the lawsuit. Those charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence on the condition that Lanham agree to move out of Dunbar for at least six months, the lawsuit maintains.

The lawsuit, filed by Charleston attorneys Bill and Jesse Forbes, seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, and asks Circuit Judge Jim Stucky to order the defendants not to intimidate potential witnesses or to retaliate against Lanham, who now lives in Charleston.

Although Lanham was not the victim of the crime that landed Conley in prison, the allegations in her lawsuit match the circumstances of one woman described by prosecutors at Conley's April sentencing.

Conley repeatedly used thinly veiled suggestions to convey to women that they had the option of getting out of trouble in exchange for sexual favors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Marsh said. Conley preyed upon women who were particularly vulnerable, Marsh said, describing his abuse of authority as a police officer as "absolutely outrageous."

During that hearing, Conley's defense attorney noted that Conley disputed many of the accounts of the additional women who had come forward.

In sentencing Conley, the judge said he was surprised that his conduct didn't constitute a felony.

"This [was] not a single, isolated episode," Johnston said. "The public needs to be able to trust the police."

Conley is serving his sentence at a federal facility in Elkton, Ohio. He is scheduled to be released in May 2011, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.