Officer Luther Stidham charged with statutory

[WaTcHeR]

09.15.2006 - BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C. A Boiling Spring Lakes police officer has been charged with the statutory rape of a teenage girl.

Authorities say Officer Luther Stidham communicated with the 14-year-old on MySpace, a popular Internet site.

Brunswick County deputies arrested 36-year-old Stidham at the police department, where he had been an officer for slightly more than a year.

He faces felony charges of statutory rape, statutory sex offense and two counts of indecent liberties with a child.

Authorities said the crimes occurred throughout July and one day in August.

The State Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation.

Stidham is on unpaid leave pending the outcome of the case.

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[WaTcHeR]

09.21.2006 - A former Charlottesville police officer arrested in a corruption probe has been sentenced to three months behind bars for lying about his partner’s sex act with a blindfolded, underage girl.

Roy Fitzgerald, 46, was caught up in a state and federal investigation into police corruption and was originally charged with bribery, conspiracy and witness tampering. But he reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty only to lying.

Prosecutors said dropping the charges in exchange for the guilty plea would not have significantly altered the sentence for Fitzgerald or another former city cop. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas J. Bondurant asked for and received an “upward departure” from sentencing guidelines in Fitzgerald’s case.

Judge Norman K. Moon remanded Fitzgerald to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons and ordered him to pay $100 for special assessment and $5,000, the maximum monetary fine for the conviction. The officer of 15 years is to remain on supervised probation for three years after he is released from custody.

Former Officer Charles Saunders, 47, who also faced corruption charges and pleaded guilty to lying to an FBI agent, is scheduled for sentencing in U.S. District Court on Friday.

Fitzgerald and Saunders were accused of accepting money, sex and sexually explicit entertainment from Charles M. Phillips - a manager of the now-defunct Max nightclub and owner of a local escort service - in exchange for overlooking illegal after-hours activity at the club and drunken driving by Phillips.

According to prosecutors, the officers also supplied Phillips with information on drug arrests and exposed an undercover city police officer posing as a prostitute. The illegal activity began in the mid-’90s, prosecutors said.

At a guilty plea hearing in June, Bondurant said that Fitzgerald had lied to an FBI agent when he denied concealing that Saunders had had sex with a blindfolded 16-year-old girl at the home of Phillips’ associate Jason Madison.

Saunders lied about intervening on Phillips’ behalf during a drunken driving arrest, Bondurant said.

Madison, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit perjury, was sentenced to three years of probation and a $100 fine.

Phillips pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery and is scheduled for sentencing Friday.

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