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Kentucky Sheriff and Deputy|Accused of Outrageous Abuses

OWENSBORO, Ky. (CN) - A Kentucky sheriff made a woman strip for him, and a deputy sheriff sexually assaulted her in front of her husband and got her addicted to drugs he stole from an evidence locker, the woman claims in court.

Hope Shelburne sued Grayson County Sheriff Rick Clemons and his former deputy sheriff and detective Terry Blanton, in Federal Court.

Shelburne claims she was called into the Grayson County Sheriff's Department in late 2009, where Sheriff Clemons falsely accused her of selling hydrocodone and told her, "'I will be good to you, if you're good to me.'"

The complaint states: "Clemons ordered the plaintiff to remove her clothes. When the plaintiff undressed, the defendant Sheriff Clemons ordered the plaintiff to get on top of his desk in the sheriff's office. Sheriff Clemons made the plaintiff to touch her genitals. Sheriff Clemons gratified himself in the presents [sic] of the plaintiff while she was made to touch her genitals."

More than a year later, Shelburne says, Det. Blanton approached her about becoming a confidential informant. She says she agreed in order to defer a charge of hindering the apprehension of a fugitive.

During her time as an informant, Shelburne says, Blanton threatened to throw her in jail for the hindering charge if she did not submit to his sexual advances.

"Because of these threats, threats similar to those which had been made by Blanton's superior officer, Sheriff Rick Clemons, the plaintiff acquiesced to Blanton's advances," the lawsuit states.

"Blanton continuously sexually exploited the plaintiff over the next year and a half, even forcing the plaintiff to engage in sexual acts with him in front of her husband, Daniel McStoots.

"Blanton, prior to the first of the above described incidences and in plaintiff's presence, had threatened to charge Daniel McStoots with a crime and have him jailed if he revealed any information regarding his sexual exploitation of the plaintiff."

Shelburne claims that Blanton also provided her with illegal narcotics, some of them from the Sheriff's Department evidence locker.

She claims that "Blanton began giving the plaintiff more and more prescription drugs and illegal narcotics over the period of his sexual exploitation of her. Eventually, these actions led to the plaintiff developing a severe addiction to opioids." Shelburne claims that Blanton stopped his predations in 2012, after he was arrested for theft of a controlled substance, trafficking in a controlled substance and hindering prosecution or apprehension of a fugitive.

According to an article in the Grayson County News Gazette, Blanton pleaded guilty to the charges last week and is to be sentenced on Oct. 15.

Shelburne seeks $10 million in damages for constitutional violations, sexual assault and false imprisonment.

She is represented by J. Anthony Cash, of Brandenburg, Ky.

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