By William Snowden
The woman who was allegedly the victim of a sexual battery by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper in January has run up a number of misdemeanor traffic charges since July, including a DUI arrest in Franklin County, and is currently in the Wakulla County Jail after two stops for driving with a suspended license.
The 35-year-old woman has alleged that Trooper Charlie Odom stopped her on Shadeville Road for speeding in January, and she admitted to Odom that she had been drinking alcohol before driving, but he wrote her no tickets. At a deserted restaurant parking lot, she claims Odom took topless photos of her and she performed oral sex on him. The next day, the woman told her best friend about the incident and the best friend, who was dating a Wakulla Sheriff’s detective, reported it.
The Wakulla News has withheld the identity of the woman since she is a victim in the Odom case.
Odom was arrested on charges of sexual assault by a law enforcement officer, a first degree felony, and bribery, a second degree felony. He is set for trial next month. As a result of the charges, he was terminated by the highway patrol.
Since then, the alleged victim was stopped by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper in Franklin County on July 11, a Saturday night around midnight, after the trooper allegedly observed the vehicle being driven erratically. According to the arrest report filed by Trooper Charles Cook, prior to performing field sobriety exercises, the woman asked the trooper if he knew who she was.
No, he said.
She answered that she was “the Odom girl.”
Cook wrote in his report that he answered who she was wasn’t important to him or his DUI investigation.
“Do what you want,” the woman allegedly responded. “Willie Meggs is my attorney and he will get me out of this.”
When she allegedly failed the sobriety exercises, the trooper arrested her for driving while impaired. Cook put in his report that he did not search the woman prior to putting her in his patrol car to transport her to jail but, he noted, “I could observe that there was nothing in her pockets.”
During the transport, she reportedly asked numerous times to be allowed to go to the bathroom, to which the trooper said he could not do that. On arrival at the jail, the woman asked him to pull down her shirt in the back, but the trooper said no.She allegedly blew a breathalyzer of .20 and .18 at the Franklin County Jail. Under Florida law, .08 is considered intoxicated.
The woman posted a $500 surety bond and was released from jail.
Less than two weeks later, on July 23 at 10 a.m., the woman was stopped on Shadeville Highway by Wakulla Deputy Sheriff Lorne Whaley after she allegedly crossed the yellow center line a couple of times. Deputy Whaley confirmed that the woman’s license had been suspended for the DUI. She was arrested for driving with a suspended license, a first degree misdemeanor, and released. The car was turned over to a friend who came to the scene.
Around midnight that same day, Wakulla Deputy Sheriff Benjamin Steinle was traveling south on Wakulla Springs Road when he saw two trucks, both going 50 in a 55 mph zone, but one was allegedly following very closely behind the other – less than a car length between them. Steinle turned around to conduct a traffic stop for following too close, turned on his emergency lights, and both trucks pulled to the shoulder.
In his report, Steinle determined that the drivers did not know each other, and the driver in the first truck complained that the driver behind him was “all on my tail.” He released that vehicle and asked the woman driving the other truck for her license. “I don’t have one,” she responded. He went to his patrol vehicle and confirmed the woman’s license had been suspended and that she had been arrested earlier that day for driving with a suspended license.
Steinle arrested the woman for felony driving while license suspended.
According to the the arrest report, while driving to the jail, the woman told him that Jack Campbell, the chief prosecutor for Wakulla, and State Attorney Willie Meggs were going to team up on him. “I am going to sue the crap out of you,” she allegedly said, adding: “You are all out to get me.”
Steinle noted that this was the first time he had contact with the woman.
County Judge Jill Walker revoked the woman’s bond on the earlier charge, and set bail at $1,500 on the new felony charge. The State Attorney’s office subsequently filed an information reducing it to a misdemeanor charge of driving with a suspended license.
The woman remains in the Wakulla County Jail.