More Problems for Cop Indicted in Breonna Taylor Case

10 women accuse Brett Hankison of sexual misconduct in lawsuit
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 11, 2020 10:35 AM CST
Cop Indicted in Breonna Taylor Case a 'Sexual Predator': Suit
This undated file photo shows officer Brett Hankison.   (Louisville Metro Police Department via AP, File)

The lone police officer charged in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor now faces allegations of sexual assault and battery. A lawsuit filed Tuesday describes former Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Brett Hankison as a "sexual predator" who "used his police uniform and secondary nightclub employment as mechanisms to prey on innocent women," per CNN. It includes allegations from 10 women, ranging from unwanted sexual advances to sexual assault. Margo Borders—one of two women to come forward in June, per the Courier Journal—claims Hankison, an acquaintance, was working security at a bar in April 2018 when he offered to drive her home. Borders, who was intoxicated, claims Hankison invited himself into her apartment and "willfully, intentionally, painfully, and violently sexually assaulted" her when she passed out in her bedroom.

Borders, then in her early 20s, awoke and yelled for him to get off of her and he left, the suits reads, per CNN. The next day, he tried to suggest "the two had engaged in consensual relations," per the suit. Borders has said she didn't go to police for fear of retaliation, per NBC News. "Margo and so many other women put their trust in what they thought was a police officer doing a good deed. He responded by damaging their lives," says Borders' attorney Sam Aguiar, who also represents Taylor's family. Hankison was exonerated after two Public Integrity Unit investigations centering on claims that he demanded sexual favors from women he came in contact with through work, per the Courier Journal. The suit, which further claims that numerous police reports weren't pursued, accuses five other LMPD members, including former Chief Steve Conrad, of failing to intervene. (More Brett Hankison stories.)

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