WILMINGTON, DEL. (CN) - The Town of Laurel's white police Officer Kevin Hovatter raped and sodomized a black woman in a racially motivated hate crime while he was armed and on duty, after he had been decertified as a police officer in Maryland for stalking a woman, his victim claims in New Castle Superior Court.
Hovatter was prosecuted on two counts of first-degree rape, one count of coercion and one count of official misconduct, and pleaded guilty to first-degree unlawful sexual contact, a felony, the suit states. He was sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender.
The woman says Laurel should never have hired Hovatter at all, as he had been suspended from the Wicomico County Sheriff's Office in Maryland after a nurse complained twice that he was stalking her.
"Hovatter resigned before Internal Affairs could complete its investigation," the suit states. As a result, "Hovatter was decertified from being a police officer in the State of Maryland and he could not be hired by another Maryland law enforcement agency."
The woman says Hovatter ordered her from her car, in the presence of her husband, then put her in his police car and took her to a secluded spot where he sodomized and raped her while in uniform, armed, and on duty.
She demands punitive damages. She is represented by Thomas Neuberger.
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