A man sexually assaulted a young girl in his family and admitted it during an interview to become a police officer in Florida. He was then arrested and charged.
Stephen Bodley, 26, was found guilty of sexual battery on a kid less than 12 by a person under 18 by a jury in Orange County, Florida.
At an interview for a job at the Apopka Police Department in 2021, Bodley admitted to sexually assaulting a young girl. One of the victims, whose name has been changed, said that the attacks happened more than once at Bodley’s house.
It was found that a man from Florida sexually abused a child when the kid was a teenager. Authorities say that he admitted to this crime when he was being questioned by police.
According to the jury in Orange County, 26-year-old Stephen Bodley is guilty of sexual battery on a child younger than 12 by a person younger than 18. As stated in a press release from the Office of the State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, the decision was made public on May 8, after a three-day trial.
According to the release, Bodley was asked to explain some answers he had given on a pre-test form during a job interview at the Apopka Police Department on June 16, 2021.
As per the affidavit, Bodley told a detective at the time, “I can’t remember but um, but what do you call it, yes, um, I used to play these little sexual games, like oral with my little [redacted], and I know she, she didn’t fully know what was going on. And I used to watch a lot of porn, so I had type of an addiction when I was younger.”
An affidavit for an arrest request says that Bodley talked about a disturbing event that happened in his home with a younger child 10 years ago, when he was 12 to 13 years old. He is said to have admitted to what happened again when he was being questioned.
During the detective’s asking, Bodley gave more information about what happened, including descriptions of what he did with his private parts. As stated in the statement, he also called the first event an unintended incident.
The Apopka Police Department started a criminal investigation after Bodley was caught. This led to the victim and her mother being identified.
Detectives told the victim’s mother about Bodley’s confessions while he was being questioned. According to the statement, she said she had known Bodley since he was a baby and had no doubts that he was seeing her daughter.
According to the affidavit, the victim got very emotional when police asked her about the sexual abuse and said she couldn’t remember anything.
The victim—whose age at the time and present age are blacked out in the affidavit—said that the incidents happened in Bodley’s room more than once on different days and that she had a patchy memory of what happened.
The victim told police that she didn’t know how old Bodley was when the assaults began, but she thought he was a teenager, according to the statement. Bodley was between the ages of 14 and 15 at that time, according to more research.
Prosecutors said in a press statement that Bodley testified in the case and “denied sexually abusing the victim despite having previously admitted to committing the crime three times.”
Bodley’s court record shows that he will be sentenced on June 24.
