BATON ROUGE, La. — A Baton Rouge police officer accused of luring a college student to a secluded area during a traffic stop, making sexual advances, and groping her in June turned himself in to police Wednesday, a day after a warrant was issued for his arrest, reports said.
Baton Rouge Police Department Officer Donald Steele's attorney Franz Borghardt said the encounter was entirely consensual, WBRZ reported.
"Officer Steele turned himself in this morning to the arresting agency. My client maintains his innocence of these allegations and that the exchange between him and the accuser was consensual," Borghardt's statement read.
Ron Haley, an attorney representing the victim, said text messages and other evidence support the allegations, according to a report from WBRZ.
"It's not just the fact that officer Steele turned off his body cam. It is not that Officer Steele gave means to have her follow him after the stop. We can look at the text messages that were sent from my client's phone to a third party as the incident is taking place in real-time to show that this is not consensual," Haley said.
Steele told the victim to follow him to the airport and threatened to hold a DWI charge over her if she refused, records said. The victim said she complied because she didn't want to be arrested.
"Make no mistake. In this case, it was the badge that influenced the decisions of our client," Haley said.
Steele was booked into jail Wednesday morning on charges of malfeasance, sexual battery and kidnapping. He bonded out later that same day.
Steele is currently on administrative leave from the Baton Rouge Police Department.
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