A Baltimore County, Maryland, police officer convicted of raping a woman and assaulting another was sentenced to home detention after a judge found that there was no “psychological injury” in one of the cases, prosecutors said Monday.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Keith Truffer suspended all but four years of a 15-year prison term and ordered the officer, Anthony Westerman, to serve it at home, NBC affiliate WBAL reported.
Westerman, who had pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree rape, second-degree assault and other crimes, was convicted in August, court records show.
He was arrested in 2019 after two women accused him of rape. In one case from 2017, a woman said that after she drank too much, Westerman offered to arrange an Uber ride home. She told authorities that she passed out and awoke to him raping her at his house.
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He was acquitted in the second rape, the Baltimore Sun reported, and convicted of forcibly kissing a third woman.
A lawyer for Westerman, Brian Thompson, said by email that his client was "relieved" that the judge had ordered home confinement. "We believe that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence," he said. "This was a 'he said, she said' case in which everyone was intoxicated."
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