Cop Kidnapped & Raped Her, Woman Says

AUSTIN (CN) - Police Sgt. Jimmy Lewis Fennell Jr. kidnapped and raped a woman while armed and on duty, after the City of Georgetown ignored "overwhelming evidence" of his "troubling pattern of sexually deviant and violent behavior," his 20-year-old victim claims in Federal Court. Fennell will be sentenced on Friday for kidnapping and having sex with a person in custody, the complaint states.

The woman says Fennell raped her after responding to a domestic disturbance call. She says she immediately reported to Georgetown 911 that she had just been raped by a Georgetown Police Officer named Fennell, and the city sent Fennell with other officers to respond to her 911 call.

"Fennell and the other officers attempted to coerce and intimidate plaintiff to recant," the complaint states. They refused her request to be tested with a "rape kit," but booked her into jail for public intoxication, she says.

Fennell eventually pleaded guilty to state charges kidnapping and sexual contact with a person in custody, the complaint states. He is to be sentenced on Sept. 26.

In addition, the complaint states, "before the City of Georgetown hired Fennell as a patrol officer in November 1998, it certainly knew that he was the prime suspect in the 1996 brutal strangulation, sexual assault and murder of his fiancee, Stacy Stites ... A simple Google search shows that contemporaneous with the City of Georgetown's decision to hire Fennell as a patrol officer, there were countless media articles, including television and print, detailing Fennell's involvement in the Stites murder and also describing Fennell's deception to law enforcement."

The plaintiff says the city ignored other clear evidence of Fennell's sexual deviancy and brutality. She demands punitive damages for sexual assault and battery, false imprisonment, and civil rights violations. She is represented by Mark Hefter.

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