By Ashley B. Craig
Charleston Daily Mail
The former Princeton police officer who made headlines last year when he accused training officers of beating him unconscious at the State Police Academy has been charged with attempting to negotiate sexual favors with a teenage boy.
State Police arrested Christopher Scott Winkler, 24, Thursday after a weeklong investigation into an alleged March 1 incident that occurred while Winkler was on duty as a Princeton police officer.
He was released on a $2,500 bond after his arraignment Thursday afternoon, said Mercer County Magistrate Rick Fowler.
Sgt. John Howell, a spokesman for the Princeton Police Department, said the office was notified March 2 of the State Police investigation and immediately placed Winkler on paid administrative suspension.
Winkler resigned his post two days later.
Howell didn’t have any comment on the allegations but said that Winkler hadn’t had any other problems while working at the department.
Winkler, who had been with the department for two years, allegedly met a 17-year-old boy in the parking lot of Grants Supermarket located at the intersection of W.Va. 20 and W.Va. 104 in Princeton. He allegedly met the boy in a marked police cruiser while in uniform at 10:43 p.m.
The two knew each other from a previous introduction eight or nine months earlier, said Mercer County Prosecutor Scott Ash. He said authorities believe it wasn’t the first time Winkler had made sexual advances to the boy but said he could not go into further detail.
“Of course, these are just allegations,” Ash said. “At this point nothing has been proven without a doubt.”
Trooper P.H. Shrewsbury wrote in a criminal complaint filed in Mercer County that Winkler attempted to negotiate sexual favors, specifically oral sex, from the teen during their conversation, and said in return he would reduce a claimed monetary debt the teen owed.
Winkler then threatened to file felony charges against the teen and said that would prevent him from getting a job and ruin his life, the complaint said.
Winkler also told the teen that if he cooperated, the officer wouldn’t contact Child Protective Services on a separate matter involving the boy’s mother, the complaint said.
Shrewsbury noted in the complaint that Winkler was “using his authority as a police officer to scare the juvenile into cooperating.”
The teen went to the State Police shortly after the incident to report what happened, Ash said.
The youth told troopers he feared Winkler’s position as a police officer and that his position made the officer’s threats seem credible.
“In conclusion, Officer Winkler used his police authority to negotiate oral sex from the juvenile and in exchange Officer Winkler would fail to perform or improperly perform his official public duties by not filing felony criminal charges and failing to report an incident to CPS,” Shrewsbury wrote in the complaint.
Winkler was charged with bribery, but the prosecutor said he could face other charges when the case is heard by the grand jury in June.
“It certainly has the tinge of a sexually motivated crime,” Ash said. “All of that will be looked at when we present the case to the grand jury and they could come back with more charges against him.”
Winkler was the subject of an investigation into training practices at the State Police Academy last year, after he claimed to have been severely injured during multiple assailant training in April. He said he sustained a traumatic brain injury.
Winkler and his mother, Pamela McPeak, alleged he was injured during the exercise but urged to continue by the training officers. Winkler then collapsed and was kicked by trainers, they claimed.
He was taken to Thomas Memorial Hospital in South Charleston. Doctors discovered he had a blood clot in his brain and a concussion, according to the medical records McPeak shared with the Daily Mail last year.
An investigation by the Kanawha County Prosecutor’s Office cleared the instructors at the academy of any wrongdoing after several witnesses disputed Winkler’s claims. Dan Holstein, the assistant prosecutor who conducted the investigation, said there was no evidence that the trainers intended to injure Winkler.
Winkler remains free on bond. Fowler, the magistrate who oversaw his arraignment, said a preliminary hearing on the matter will be held within the next 20 days.
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers