Naked City

The alleged victim in a pending sexual assault case against former UT police officer Sellers Bailey III filed a civil suit against the university on Aug. 18, claiming school officials were negligent in retaining an officer who had previously been charged with sexual harassment.

Bailey is currently awaiting trial -- scheduled to begin Sept. 4 -- on a charge that he sexually assaulted the woman, a former UT student, in April 2001. While on duty and driving a university police car, Bailey allegedly drove the student to the fifth floor of a campus parking garage and forced her to perform oral sex. Bailey allegedly offered the student several paper towels to clean herself; she later retrieved the towels from a trash can and turned them over to police as evidence. Bailey resigned from UTPD on May 2, 2001.

According to the suit filed last week, this was not the first allegation of sexual misconduct leveled against Bailey, and UT officials knew or should have known he was a threat to other women. According to the suit, a former female UT security guard filed a sexual harassment complaint against Bailey in 1999 after he allegedly asked her to take pictures of her breasts and genitals, propositioned her for a "threesome," and showed her pictures of his penis while the two were on a "tour of campus buildings" in his UT police car. In investigating the complaint, officials discovered that Bailey had "knowingly" falsified police reports and had been "sleeping" while on duty, the lawsuit reads.

Bailey denied the sexual harassment charge, and apparently that was enough for university officials. "Who is this [word withheld] that she can allege the most bizarre ... things and it is suddenly forgotten that I have worked for [UTPD] for nearly nine years," the lawsuit quotes Bailey as telling UTPD investigators in 1999. Not only had he "worked with and around women," he said, but had also "been around some of the most attractive young women in the world and have never had a similar complaint" filed against him. According to the lawsuit, Bailey was suspended for three days; he appealed, the suspension was later overturned, his pay was reinstated, and UT officials subsequently fired his accuser.

The latest civil suit seeks to hold the university liable for continuing to entrust the use of school property -- like a police car, badge, and gun -- to an officer who they knew had previously misused state property. Attorneys Derek Howard and Robert Schmidt hope this argument will overcome UT's "sovereign immunity" from civil suits as a state agency. They filed a similar claim this spring in federal district court charging Bailey, UTPD Chief Jeff Van Slyke and UT President Larry Faulkner with negligence; the university is seeking to have that case dismissed. Both civil suits are on hold until after Bailey's criminal trial. Meanwhile, Schmidt says his attempts to settle the civil cases out of court have been rebuffed by Assistant Attorney General Linda Halpern, representing UT. "The message we're getting from them is that if your son or daughter comes to the university and is sexually assaulted by one of our police officers, it's your problem, not ours," he said. "It's shocking, but it's their attitude."