A Texas woman says she was sexually assaulted after being subjected to a vaginal search by Harris County deputies, who suspected her of possessing marijuana, KTRK reports.
Charnesia Corley, 21, said that she was driving to the store on June 21 to get something for her sick mother when she was pulled over by a sheriff's deputy around 10:30 p.m.
The deputy claimed that Corley had run a stop sign and asked her to step out of her vehicle when he thought he smelled marijuana. Corley, according to the news station, was handcuffed and put in the back of a patrol car. The deputy, after completing the search of her vehicle, found no marijuana. However, he now claimed that he smelled marijuana in his vehicle, so he called for a female deputy, who ordered Corley out of the car and into the parking lot of a gas station.
"She tells me to pull my pants down. I said, 'Ma'am, I don't have any underwear on.' She says, 'Well, that doesn't matter. Pull your pants down,' " Corley told KTRK. Corley hesitated—or, as the deputies claim, "resisted."
"She tells me, 'Open your legs,' " Corley recalled, saying that she refused. The female deputy then allegedly told her, " 'If you don't open them, I'm going to break them.'
"I feel like they sexually assaulted me. I really do. I feel disgusted, downgraded, humiliated," Corley added.
Deputies say that Corley ultimately consented to the cavity search, but Corley denies that claim. Her attorney, Sam Cammack, says that the intrusive search that was conducted in a public parking lot is a violation of his client's civil rights.
"It's undeniable that the search is unconstitutional," he said.
Investigators claim that they found .02 ounces of marijuana on Corley and she has since been charged with resisting arrest and possession of the drug.
Corley, for her part, plans to file a complaint with the Internal Affairs Division of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, the news site notes.
Read more at KTRK.