Trooper Kelley Helleson, who was later fired after the Texas Department of Public Safety investigated, was charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression. Trooper David Farrell was charged with theft after the women said their prescription went missing following last summer’s incident. The women, Ashley Dobbs, 24, and her aunt Angel Dobbs, 38, filed a suit last year saying they were traumatized by the search.
A still from the traffic stop. One of the women can be heard in the video saying, 'I was like totally violated over there a few minutes ago. I had a finger in my a-- and a finger in my p----. ... This is so embarrassing to me.'
A pair of Texas state troopers involved in an allegedly “horrific” hands-on cavity search of two women last summer have been indicted on criminal charges, according to reports.
Former Trooper Kelley Helleson was charged with two counts of sexual assault and two counts of official oppression in the July 13 incident caught on a dashboard camera along an Irving highway, reported CBS affiliate KTVT in Dallas.
The Texas Department of Public Safety fired Helleson following an investigation.
The other trooper, David Farrell, was charged with theft after one of the women said her prescription bottle of hydrocodone went missing following the traffic stop near Dallas, according to KTVT.
'I was molested. I was violated,' says 38-year-old Angel Dobbs, who was given a cavity search after Texas troopers pulled her over last summer in a traffic stop. The troopers thought there were illegal drugs in the car. Dobbs was also given a sobriety test, but passed.
They were charged after a grand jury handed up the indictments against them Friday.
“Angel Dobbs was overwhelmed with emotion and a feeling of helplessness and reacted stating that Helleson had just violated her in a most horrific manner,” the lawsuit reads.
Farrell had pulled the women over after he said one of them flung a cigarette out of the car.
Officer Kelley Helleson checked the women's anuses and vaginas with the same latex glove, according to a lawsuit. Texas' Public Safety director was also named in the suit because he allegedly knew of similar searches but did nothing to stop them.
He questioned the women about using marijuana and had Angel Dobbs, the driver, perform a sobriety test. She reportedly passed.
Helleson also was called over to search the women, and stuck her hands down their pants.
“This has been an eye-opening experience for me,” Angel Dobbs tells Farrell in the video. “I’ve never been pulled over, never searched like this. ... I was like totally violated over there a few minutes ago. I had a finger in my a-- and a finger in my p----. ...This is so embarrassing to me.”
Ashley Dobbs, 24, says a female Texas trooper went too far during a body cavity search last summer after she and her aunt were pulled over in a traffic stop.
The women also claimed that Helleson used the same latex glove to check both of their anuses and vaginas — all while other cars zipped past them on the public roadway.
The women were eventually slapped with a warning for littering.
Helleson’s attorney, Robert Baskett, didn’t immediately return a request for comment Sunday.
He told KTVT that his client is not guilty and is appealing her firing.
Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, was also named in the women's suit because he allegedly knew about other similar strip and cavity searches and failed to stop them. His department couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday.
The Dobbses' attorney, Scott Palmer, previously told the Daily News that Helleson’s invasive search tactic “isn’t supposed to happen and should never happen again.”
