An Ocoee
police sergeant was arrested Thursday after an investigation concluded
that he stripped, fondled and spanked a woman against her will, leaving
welts on her rear and legs.
It was the second time similar allegations have been made against Sgt.
Thomas T. Maroney, 35, investigative documents show -- although the
woman who made the previous claim escaped without being touched.
In this week's case, the woman, 30, told Orange County sheriff's
investigators that another Ocoee police officer invited her and a
friend to a party Monday, and Maroney "bet her" on card tricks he
performed and said she owed him on the bet, a sheriff's report says.
According to the report:
Maroney appeared drunk, the woman told investigators, and asked her to
walk with him around a retention pond at the apartment complex. When
they were alone, he asked her for oral sex, pulled down her pants,
touched her genitals, pinned her across his legs as he sat on the
ground and spanked her about a dozen times on her bare butt.
The woman said she cried and struggled, but Maroney held her down and
switched from his hand to a leather belt, hitting her another
half-dozen times.
"Nothing was consensual," said Sam Filler, the woman's attorney. "He
brutalized her. He violated the public trust. And she doesn't want this
to happen to anyone else."
Maroney's attorney, Mark Lippman, acknowledged that Maroney was at the
party but would not comment further. When Maroney's home was searched
Tuesday, he handed over a black belt and admitted that he spanked the
woman, claiming she agreed, the sheriff's report states.
Maroney was released on $8,500 bail from the Orange County Jail about
10:15 p.m. Thursday. The charges are attempted sexual battery, false
imprisonment and battery.
In 2004, a woman who had been an Ocoee police intern complained that
Maroney made a bet on a card trick and tried to collect by spanking
her, a police internal-affairs report shows. Maroney received a written
warning.