By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — A former auxiliary reserve police officer in the St. Louis County community of Velda City pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges that he sexually assaulted a woman he pulled over in 2006.
Joe Ernest Phillips, 38, admitted that he was in a marked police vehicle in July 2006 when he stopped a 26-year-old woman and sent her boyfriend away on foot.
Phillips then searched her car before asking her to follow him to a darker, more remote parking area, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric L. Gibson said in court. Phillips forcibly fondled her, then took photographs of her genitals with his cell phone.
In court filings, prosecutors said Phillips’ “apparent fetish” was “the photographing of female genitalia as a sort of trophy.”
Phillips also admitted lying multiple times to FBI agents investigating the case and misleading them by giving them a different cell phone than he used the night of the incident.
He told agents that he never pulled anyone over while working as a reserve officer and that he kept away from women while on the job because too many police officers get in trouble for “sexual abuse,” court documents show.
Phillips could face around 20 years in prison when sentenced later this year. He pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation, and obstructing justice for hiding the cell phone he used.
Prosecutors were prepared to prove that Phillips lied to the FBI when he said that he never pulled over anyone while in uniform.
Court documents show that another woman would have testified to a run-in with Phillips. He checked the plates of that woman’s car after a nighttime traffic stop. Earlier, he had stopped her and let her go because she had “pretty brown eyes.”
Another Velda City officer, listed only as “J.M.” in court documents, told of being called to assist Phillips, who had stopped a man he accused of leaving a known drug house. Concerned about Phillips’ claims, J.M. and the other officer apologized to the man and let him go.
Copyright 2009 St. Louis Post-Dispatch