Ex-Wichita cop facing second set of sexual assault allegations

A lawsuit alleges that a former Wichita police officer – already accused of molesting one woman in his patrol car in 2014 – repeatedly sexually assaulted another woman between 2010 and 2012.

The former officer’s attorney on Monday denied the allegations involving both women.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Wichita, says that Officer Richard Bachman sexually assaulted the other woman in an Old Town alley in the winter of 2010.

Wichita police are investigating the 2010-2012 allegations.

The lawsuit claims that Bachman, who resigned in 2014, offered to give both women rides home from Finns Lounge, 131 N. Rock Island, in the city’s Old Town entertainment district.

After the woman declined Bachman’s offer of a ride in 2010, he led her to an alley between Finns and the Brick Yard, shoved her against a wall and sexually assaulted her, says an amended version of the lawsuit that adds the second woman’s allegations. Bachman put his hand over the woman’s mouth when she cried, it said.

When the woman said she would report him, “Officer Bachman told (her) he knew where she lived; he knew that she was married; and, he knew that she had a child,” the lawsuit claims. He threatened to remove her child and to arrest her for public intoxication, it said.

Allegedly abused 10 to 12 times

The lawsuit also gives this account of an incident in mid-2011 when the second woman was working a security job: Officer Bachman waved the woman over after turning on his overhead lights, ordered her out of her security vehicle, reached under her protective vest and grabbed her breasts. When she shoved him away, “Officer Bachman then put (the woman) in an arm bar, and shoved her against her car. Officer Bachman threatened, ‘I can take you right now.’” When she asked why he would take her to jail, he reportedly replied, “For resisting arrest.” He took her gun; she said she had a permit for it, according to the lawsuit.

As she fought him, he continued to sexually assault her and slammed her head against the car, the lawsuit said.

“Over the course of two years, Officer Bachman physically and sexually abused (the woman) 10 to 12 times,” with the last incident in late 2012, the lawsuit claims. One time, Bachman used the woman’s own security guard handcuffs to handcuff her when he sexual assaulted her, it said.

About 2012, she eventually reported the abuse to Officer Bob Adams, who “took detailed notes, documenting the abuse,” the lawsuit said.

Allegations denied

Bachman’s attorney, G. Craig Robinson, has filed a court document denying the allegations involving both women.

Only one woman is bringing the lawsuit – the woman alleging the 2014 incident.

Robinson’s answer to the complaint says “that if Defendant engaged in the conduct alleged, that conduct was encouraged or enticed by the conduct of the Plaintiff so that Plaintiff is comparatively negligent to an extent that bars or reduces Plaintiff’s claims.”

In an interview Monday, Robinson repeated that his client denies the allegations.

Bachman, 60, is no longer working in law enforcement, Robinson said. Bachman worked nearly 15 years with the Police Department, records show.

“He’s embarrassed about this; it brought discredit to the profession and Wichita Police Department,” Robinson said.

“He (Bachman) prides himself on being a good professional,” Robinson said. “It’s embarrassing to the family, obviously, and he knows it’s embarrassing for the plaintiff too. She’s going to be subject to the examination in court and all the embarrassing things that go with that.”

The woman who filed the lawsuit alleged that Bachman groped her while on duty and in his uniform while giving her a ride home in his patrol car from Finns in August 2014, the lawsuit said. He also put his uniform cap on her head, took photos of her and asked her to go “skinny dipping” with him, it said.

The lawsuit contends that Bachman put the woman in fear for her safety and violated her constitutional rights.

It names as defendants the city of Wichita, former Police Chief Norman Williams and Bachman, who resigned Aug. 11, 2014, a police spokesman has said. The resignation is the same date as the alleged incident involving the plaintiff.

In November, when asked about the alleged incident in 2014, police spokesman Lt. James Espinoza said that a criminal investigation of Bachman was done and presented and that no charges were filed.

Ongoing investigation

There is an ongoing criminal investigation by Wichita police of the allegations involving the 2010-2012 allegations, Robinson said Monday. “What they’ve told me is that they’re still reviewing the allegations.”

District Attorney Marc Bennett on Monday confirmed that police are investigating the alleged incidents between 2010 and 2012. Prosecutors asked police to investigate further. Both women’s cases “are subject to being reviewed upon the completion of the investigation,” Bennett said in an e-mail.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Wichita attorney Mark Schoenhofer, argued that Chief Williams and the city “should have known of Officer Bachman’s history of sexual aggression … and assaults of other women,” including the security guard, and should have fired the officer.

Both Norman Williams and the city are liable, it says.

Neither the Police Department nor the city attorney would talk about the case Monday.

In January, the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training issued a summary order to revoke Bachman’s law enforcement certification based on his alleged conduct, commission attorney Eric Williams said Monday. The certification is essentially a license to be a law enforcement officer.

Bachman then requested a hearing on the order to revoke; a commission panel held the hearing on Feb. 8, and the panel’s decision is pending, Eric Williams said.

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Ex-Wichita cop facing second set of sexual assault allegations."