TAMPA, Fla.- A Tampa Police Officer is looking at sexual battery charges after investigators find evidence that he touched a woman inappropriately during a traffic stop.
Adam York, 42, turned himself in to the Orient Road Jail on Thursday morning just before 9 a.m. He was released on a $15,000 bail 30 minutes later. When the sexual battery occurred, York was a 13-year veteran to the department at that time.
The incident happened on February 1 and was initially reported to another police agency. The woman involved did not know the department that the officer worked for or where the traffic stop happened.
Investigators were able to determine the man was York, he had stopped the woman on his way to work from his home in Clearwater just before dawn on a Monday morning.
The woman, whom was in her 20’s, pulled into a parking lot near WestShore Plaza at Kennedy Boulevard and West Shore Boulevard. A surveillance camera captured grainy images of the police cruiser.
During the stop, York told the woman to pull her pants and underwear down. After she did so, the officer touched her inappropriately, said the report.
The woman went to a nearby hospital after driving away to report what had happened. The stop occurred the Monday after the city’s annual Gasparilla parade, which brought law enforcement officers from several agencies to Tampa.
A week later police interviewed York on the allegations. He admitted to pulling the woman over, but denied touching her. There was no video of the incident reported.
On Feb. 25, police received results of a forensic examination from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. York’s DNA had been found inside the woman’s underwear. The report indicated that DNA was “touch DNA,” which shows skin cells left behind when a person makes physical contact with an object.
York was fired from the department on March 4.
York is just one in the latest sting of Tampa police officers and employees being fired for alleged misconduct in recent years.
