Several charges have been dropped against a former police
officer accused of twice picking up women on Clearwater streets, flashing a
badge and raping them, court records show, but other criminal charges remain.
Larry Kobielnik, a former Tarpon Springs officer, was
arrested July 27, accused of threatening a woman with a badge and firearm and
raping her in his Dunedin home the day before, the Pinellas County Sheriff's
Office said.
Days later, another woman who saw Kobielnik's photo in the
news identified him as her attacker. On May 13, a man picked her up near S
Hillcrest Avenue near Clearwater, told her he was an officer, then handcuffed
and raped her, the Sheriff's Office said.
But charges in that offense were dropped after the victim
told inconsistent stories, according to court documents released to the Tampa
Bay Times.
The woman reported the rape June 1 when she was hospitalized
for abdominal pain. She told a deputy her attacker had showed her an
oval-shaped badge.
But when a prosecutor interviewed her in August, she said a
badge was sitting atop the dining room table in Kobielnik's home. When asked to
describe the badge, the woman admitted she never saw it. "She stated that
all she saw was a folded wallet," records state, "but she never opened
it or saw a badge."
Charges of sexual battery, kidnapping, and impersonation of
an officer related to the May 13 offense were dropped in August.
But charges in the July case remain, including sexual
battery and impersonation of an officer.
In 2002, Kobielnik was also suspected of a similar crime in
Tarpon Springs when a woman accused him of raping her behind an office
building. But with no DNA evidence, prosecutors declined to file charges.
Kobielnik, 37, was an officer for the Transportation
Security Administration, but was fired after his arrest. He also was a Tarpon
Springs police officer from April 2000 to May 2001.
He remained at the Pinellas County Jail on Wednesday in lieu
of $110,000 bail