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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Cop Must Pay $2 Million for Forced Sex

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CN) - A federal judge ordered a former deputy sheriff to pay $2 million in damages to a 15-year-old girl he forced to give him a blow job.

Former Jackson County sheriff's Officer Steven W. Burgess pleaded guilty in 2010 to violating the girl's constitutional rights.

He was sentenced to 14 years in prison without parole.

According to court documents, Burgess was on duty and in uniform when he came across the victim and her friends on July 24, 2007 at around 2 a.m. Burgess told the friends to leave and ordered the victim to stay. He put her in handcuffs, groped her breasts and buttocks and forced her to perform oral sex on him.

She sued Burgess and Jackson County in September 2011, claiming the county had a pattern of failing to restrain or punish its officers for sexual misbehavior.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. last week ordered Burgess to pay the victim $400,000 in compensatory damages and $1.6 million in exemplary damages.

Jackson County has paid $400,000 to settle the victim's claim.

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