If you’re having that much of a problem getting dates, maybe you should take a little time to self-reflect, tap into yourself as a person, discover who you are and what you have to offer, fix your life, even “eat, pray, love” your way through Europe. There are so many options to explore instead of attempting to abuse a position of power in order to seal a deal.
Alas, one particularly grimy New Jersey state trooper just decided that he would use his badge and his authority to pull women over for a chance to ask them on dates, and then took it one step further by tampering with police records to cover his heinous acts.
According to NJ.com, 38-year-old Marquice Prather, who has since been fired, pleaded guilty Monday to records tampering and other charges related to the traffic stops he made on state highways, as well as charges of invasion of privacy in the case.
The news site notes that Prather’s attorney, Melvin Wright, found issue with the way the state characterized the plea, insisting that his client denied “pulling over [women] for the purposes of trying to get dates.”
Nonetheless, he was initially suspended without pay back in December after an internal investigation uncovered “a pattern of pulling over women, ranging in age from 18 to 42, and soliciting them to go on a date with him or give him their phone numbers.”
Authorities say that the former trooper also admitted to searching the cellphones of several female motorists “without justification,” going through their personal photos and videos and in some cases even reproducing “intimate photos and videos of the women.”
Because how much lower can you get? Prather is here to demonstrate.
Wright attempted to claim that Prather pulled the women over for legitimate traffic violations and went through their cellphones because the women had stored their insurance information electronically. Wright conceded, however, in some cases that the women had nude photographs on the phone that Prather then improperly acquired and forwarded to a friend.
So, yes, he stole private photos from women. So why isn’t he also being slapped with a sex charge?
Prather also admitted to falsely reporting the genders of the drivers he pulled over in order to cover up the fact that he was targeting women.
Wright swears that his client regrets his behavior, saying that he has “matured exponentially from this experience.”
Under a plea deal, Prather has to give up his job as a trooper (not sure why this is part of a deal, since it should just be common sense) and is also barred from any public employment in New Jersey.
His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 8, where the state will recommend that he receive probation, despite the fact that he terrorized and violated several women.
It is worth noting that Prather is one of two troopers in New Jersey who have been accused of this particular type of behavior. According to NJ.com, the cases are not connected. Sounds as if the New Jersey State Police have been hiring some particularly upstanding men.
Ugh.
Charges are still pending against the second trooper, Eric Richardson.
Read more at NJ.com.