EAST ST. LOUIS — A former East St. Louis cop will serve 30
months in prison on charges relating to coercing a sex act from a female
driver.
Former patrolman Ramone T. Carpenter was indicted last year
on charges that he lied to federal agents who were investigating a civil rights
complaint. Carpenter and another officer, Christopher Parks, had already been
fired by East St. Louis police.
According to the charges, Carpenter and Parks stopped a
25-year-old woman who was driving while intoxicated, had no valid driver's
license or insurance for the vehicle she was driving.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Weinhoeft asked U.S. District
Judge Michael J. Reagan to sentence Carpenter to 36 months. Defense attorney
William Stiehl Jr. asked for a split sentence partial probation and partial
house arrest.
The 40-year-old Carpenter had no prior criminal history and
was not likely to get in any trouble again, Stiehl argued.
Weinhoeft said what the former officer did was a serious
offense.
He said Carpenter not only lied the first time the FBI
agents talked to him about it, but he repeatedly lied. Weinhoeft said there
have been numerous city officials and members of law enforcement in the area
who have committed serious crimes while on duty and that a message needed to be
sent to deter future cops from committing similar offenses.
The victim testified at Carpenter's sentencing Thursday
afternoon in front of Reagan that she performed the sex act on Carpenter
because she was afraid he was going to take her to jail and report to DCFS that
she had left her four children who were 10, 9, 8, and 1 home alone. She said
she didn't break any laws that would justify a police stop. But, she said when
she left the Citgo at 25th Street and Louisiana, where she had gone to buy some
cognac, she saw two officers sitting side by side talking to each other. She drove
off and had gotten about a block away from them when she saw flashing police
lights in her rear view mirror.
She testified that she was instructed to roll her window
down by Carpenter. She was crying because she was afraid she was going to jail
for not having a license, insurance and was driving while intoxicated.
The victim said she had been arrested previously about seven
or eight times for driving without a valid license. On those occasions, because
she couldn't afford to bond out of jail, she always got out after serving the
time. She knew her four children would be home alone without an adult present
if she went to jail. She said she didn't have any money to post her bond.
Carpenter and Parks, knew the victim had been drinking since
about 9:30 p.m. and the police stop was at 2:45 a.m. Parks, while searching her
car, found open alcohol and poured it out. Still, the two of them allowed the
victim to drive to her apartment, where Carpenter said, through testimony he
made prior to the FBI, that they took the victim to her apartment and searched
the closets, the kitchen and bathroom looking for her boyfriend, who the victim
had told him she feared.
The victim said that was not true. She said Carpenter and
Parks said they wanted to search her house. Weinhoeft told Reagan that the
victim's fourth amendment rights were violated.
"There's no question there was no basis to stop the
vehicle and no reason to detain her. The victim, Weinhoeft said, was credible
when she described the way she was frisked. It wasn't a frisk. There was
nothing proper about it. He said what Carpenter did was "groping, fondling
-- something that was sexually inappropriate."
Weinhoeft said the victim felt threatened that she would be
arrested and her children would be being taken away if the cops filed a report
with the DCFS telling them that she had left them home alone while she went out
to buy alcohol, and that was clearly the reason why the victim performed a sex
act on Carpenter in a secluded part of Jones Park.
He said Carpenter nor Parks called the dispatcher to let her
know of the traffic stop, where they were or anything proper that police do.
Stiehl argued that the victim was a former prostitute who
had worked at the Chameleon Club in Washington Park and got paid to perform
sexual acts.
The victim said she hadn't done that type of work in two
years and denied she did a sexual act with Carpenter for pay.
Stiehl portrayed her as a woman scorned. He said when the
victim learned that Carpenter didn't have any money ($30) to pay her and that
he was married, she became upset. He pointed out that the victim was never
handcuffed, was riding in the front seat of Carpenter's squad car and that the
two of them never spoke a word while riding in the car.
The victim said she thought Carpenter was taking her to the
East St. Louis Police Department, but the way he went was not in the direction
of the Police Department.
"I was not sure where I was going," she said.
At the park, "He asked me to have sex with him. I lied
and told him I was on my menstruation. Then, he told me to have oral sex with
him. Before I could answer, he had his pants unzipped and his private out. I
knew I had to do it because he was a cop. I didn't want to do it," she
said crying and wiping tears from her eyes.
Afterward, Carpenter dropped the victim off at her
apartment. She called her grandmother, a brother and sister and told them of
the ordeal. A brother took her to the East St. Louis Police Department about 11
a.m. to file a police report.
Stiehl said the victim had the opportunity to tell Parks
that she didn't want to have sex with Carpenter and didn't. He contended that
the sex was consensual.
The victim said Carpenter turned his police radio off and
turned his radio music up while he was driving to the Park. She said she didn't
know where he was going until he arrived at the park. The victim said he told
her that he was not going to answer any calls on his police radio.
Stiehl asked her why she didn't tell the other officer
(Parks) to make Carpenter stop or tell him that she didn't want him to touch
her. The victim said "He was standing there watching:.
Weinhoeft said the victim's 14 amendment right of due
process body integrity had been violated.
"This was not about a romantic encounter," he
said. Weinhoeft said she may have engaged in prostitution at some other time,
"but not on May 8."
"She acquiesced to authority," Weinhoeft said.
Reagan told Carpenter that he had an obligation to be
truthful when he spoke to the FBI. He said the judicial system does not work if
people are not truthful
"No one knows that better than a cop," he said.
"Cops need to protect, not exploit. The victim is not a
poster child. But, people like her in East St. Louis, downtrodden and
distraught, deserve and need police protection. But they get the only two cops
on the street in Jones Park committing a sex act and the other one is covering
for him," Reagan said. He pointed out that nationally the numbers are
horrific for violent crimes, but in East St.. Louis sometimes the numbers are
double the national stats.
He also pointed out that there are many good officers in
East St. Louis who bring dignity to the badge.
Carpenter choked up and sometimes wiped tears from his eyes
as he apologized to his family, the city of East St. Louis and to his fellow cops.
He said his marriage was over and that he had nothing. He
said that person on May 8 was not him.
"That was not me your honor. All I know is work. I lost
my wife, my three kids, my job and my future. I don't have anything. It's been
rough. That's all I have to say," Carpenter said, wiping his eyes. Then he
took his seat behind his attorney at the defense table. Reagan allowed him to
surrender when the U.S. Marshall Service calls him to report to the Bureau of
Prisons.