Buy Photo

Alexandria Quinn poses for a portrait in Opelika, Ala., on Friday, July 24, 2020.(Photo: Jake Crandall/ Advertiser)

An Alabama woman prepared to challenge the city of Tuskegee and a former police officer in federal court this summer is once again awaiting her day in court, as chronic delays and COVID-19 trial cancellations have plagued the case for six years.

Alexandria Quinn, now 27, alleges a city police officer sexually assaulted her over a three-year period, beginning when she was 14. After Quinn ultimately threatened to reveal the abuse, the officer allegedly maced her during an arrest on a minor in possession of alcohol charge, which was later dropped.

Quinn alleges other police officers and police dispatchers in the small central Alabama town were warned then-cop Levy Kelly had illegal contact with minors.

Quinn's 2014 federal civil lawsuit was set to go to jury trial in July. Steeled to take the stand and recount the years of trauma that led her to speak to authorities, Quinn was told the night before trial was to begin that it would be rescheduled, due to a rise in COVID-19 cases across the state.

"I went into a depression state, feeling like I don'twant to be here," said Quinn, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in her early twenties. "Sad, crying, depressed, scared. It's scarier for me now, to know that it's being prolonged."

Last week, U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher offered the partiesthree potential trial dates in October, November and December. Both parties on Friday filed a motion agreeing to reschedule the trial for Dec. 14.

"When you've got a case like this, where the events that are the subject of litigation occurred as far back as this, so much time has lapsed that witnesses have difficultly remembering," Barbara Agricola, one of Quinn's attorneys, said after the federal trial delay."This additional delay is making it more difficult for us to be able to prove our case. Witness memory diminishes, people move out of town, people change their phone numbers, people die. It's very disappointing. We're also very disappointed that the criminal case has been continued so many times. My client is living in fear.

"We hope we can get some sort of justice soon so that he can't do this to other girls."

As federal court rescheduling continues, criminal charges against Kelly linger in state court.

Free on bond, according to court documents, Kelly has received eighttrial continuances in state court in the past six years on charges of first degree rape, first degree assault and enticing a child under 16 in Macon County. Kelly has pleaded the 5th Amendment in the federal trial and was found liable in May on four charges in federal court.

Messages left with Kelly, Kelly's attorney in the criminal case and the prosecutor of the Macon County chargeshave not been returned.

Quinn said no one investigated her claims against Kelly until the Alabama Bureau of Investigationtook over an off-duty shooting case involving the Tuskegee cop.Court records indicate the Alabama Bureau of Investigation found photos of Quinn and further evidence on Kelly's phone leading to his arrest in December 2012.

The Tuskegee Police Department, which hired Kelly on two separate occasions despite a prior criminal record, fired him after the ABImoved forward with criminal charges in Quinn's case and with charges related to a second, unidentified victim.

Alexandria Quinn poses for a portrait in Opelika, Ala., on Friday, July 24, 2020.(Photo: Jake Crandall/ Advertiser)

City attorneys, who did not return an Advertiser request for comment, have argued in pre-trial briefs that Kelly acted as a private and independent citizen when he detained, arrested and maced Quinn before driving her to the police station and questioning her for twohours.

"Everybody will reap what they sow. I know everyone has good and evil in them ..." Quinn said in June, trailing off before finishing the sentence. "But I think it's his time."

In late July, following the federal trial delay, Quinn appeared shaken in an interview with the Montgomery Advertiser.

"I'm ready to close this chapter of my life," Quinn said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Sometimes I don't want to get up in the morning. I'm tired. It's been too long."

Barbara Agricola, one of Quinn's attorneys at an Opelika law firm, said trial preparations over the summer were difficult, as they asked Quinn to "re-live all of this."

"For her to have to do this again, it's disheartening," Agricola said."It seems like we're on a hamster wheel."

"Over and over again," Quinn replied.

Quinn first met Kelly in November 2007, when the police officer was on patrol duty at a Tuskegee apartment complex she had just moved to. She first spoke to him when her mother was not home, and Kelly asked to look around the apartment, joking about finding boys in the apartment.

"He took his leg and laid his leg out, like across to the other wall. Hegrabbed me and pushed me over his leg and patted as if he was going to give me a whooping," Quinn said.

Court documents state Kelly continued to call and proposition Quinn over the following months until April 2008. Kelly then propositioned Quinn for sex, on "many" occasions in his patrol car while dressed in a police uniform. Quinn, then 15, was too young to legally consent to sexual contact with an adult.

"He had a badge. He had a gun. Hehad a nightstick. He had mace," Quinn said. "When a police officer tells you to do something, you're supposed to do it."

Quinn said Kelly began riding by her apartment, telling her he was watching her house to see who she was with. The police officer would allegedly threaten Quinn, twisting situations to make her feel like she was "the perpetrator."

"He'd threaten that he'd tell and get me put in jail. You know how kids smoke a cigarette, he'd see and threaten me over stuff like that," Quinn said.

In 2010, Quinn said Kelly "forcefully" anally raped her at a friend's house. Traumatized and fearful, then 17-year-old snapped, threatening to call the police immediately. Quinn said he stopped propositioning her after that, though she still saw him around town.

"I didn't really know the damage it had done until now," she said. Quinn has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, after years of trying to avoid the past trauma by trying to "ball it up in a corner."

"But being raped not only rapes your body, it rapes your mind," Quinn said."It's taken a toll on my life. It's like I'm just standing still, and there is something in my way. I've been scared, scared to go to sleep. Sometimes I get depressed and can't eat. It's been a long, sad situation. I cried for years, and I just wish that he would be put behind bars."

When Kelly allegedly first approached Quinn at Lakeshore Apartments in 2007, the police officer had already been sentenced for using a position of authority to threaten another person.

In June 2002, Kelly was a uniformed security officer at a Montgomery apartment complex whenhe forced a man "to the ground at gunpoint." Kelly told the man and bystanders that he was a police officer with the Montgomery Police Department.

Kelly ultimatelypleaded guilty to impersonating a police officer in Montgomery County, according to Alabama court records. He was given a suspended sentence and probation.

In her initial federal complaint, Quinn accused Tuskegee of "negligent and wanton hiring and supervision," arguing Tuskegee hired Kelly twice first in 2005 and later in 2012, after Kelly had worked as a Hayneville police officer for a short period of time despite his criminal record.

In February 2016, Kelly was pulled over in Montgomery for speeding. According to the responding cop's affidavit, Kelly pulled out his wallet and flashed a Tuskegee Police Department badge.

"I know I was speeding, I just finished working an off-duty job," Kelly said, according to the Montgomery police officer's account. Kelly was released with a warning, but the Montgomery cop later made contact with Tuskegee dispatch, who told him Kelly was no longer employed with the department.

Kelly was again charged with impersonating a peace officer, but a Montgomery grand jury didn't move to indict him.

"He impersonated a police officer," Quinn said."That goes to show you what type of guy he is.

Quinn alleges Kelly continues to stalk and harass her. She said he frequently drives past her house. Quinn and her attorneys sayshe's previously made reports to the police but hasn't lately, because she "doesn't know who to trust."

Despite Quinn's allegations of years of sexual abuse against Kelly, the federal trial is expected to centeron the issue of Tuskegee's liability and whether or not it should be held responsible for Kelly's on-duty actions during Quinn's 2012 arrest.

In May, the federal judge overseeing Quinn's lawsuit found Kelly liable of four charges and plans to consider damages at a later date.

In his judgment, Judge Andrew Brasher noted Kelly failed to present any evidence or answer to the allegations against him, apart from denying the initial claims and invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to testify.

Much of the federal trial is expected to revolve around the October 2012 incident, in which Kelly approached Quinn while she was standing outside of a car, which she said she had borrowed from her dad. Quinn believes Kelly was following her after she left a friend's house, still holding a "grudge" that she threatened to reveal the abuse.

According to court record, Kelly approached Quinn from behind, sprayed her with mace and handcuffed her.

Kelly opened a can of beer he found, poured it out and called for back-up. Quinn maintains the beer wasn't hers.

"It doesn't take mace to restrain me. I'm 105, 110 pounds," and was not resisting, Quinn said. "I didn't know what he was going to do with me. He could have killed me, raped me, threw me on the side of the road. I couldn't breathe."

Kelly called for back-up, which arrived shortly. Afraid to be left alone with Kelly, Quinn said she told the officer that Kelly had sexually assaulted her since she was 14 and she feared being alone with him. But Kelly was allowed to leave the scene with Quinn in his car.

Kelly drove her to the police station, court records state, where she was interrogated alone by Kelly for two hours before she was allowed to leave. The minor in possession charge for which she was arrested was eventually dismissed.

Quinn in court will argue Tuskegee is liable for an alleged use of excessive force stemming from the arrest.

In a trial brief, Tuskegee's lawyers say the city had takena complaint of excessive force from Quinn "seriously" and was in the process of investigating it. But the investigation was interrupted, Tuskegee lawyers said in court filings, when Kelly was involved in an off-duty shooting and evidence collected by state investigators revealed Kelly's relationship with Quinn and "other underaged minors."

Tuskegee argues there was no evidence the city knew "Kelly would use his power as a police officer to hurt her, but did nothing to stop it," despite his previous conviction of holding a man at gunpoint while impersonating a police officer.Quinn's attorneys allege at least one other officer brought concerns about Kelly's behavior with underage girls to the police chief in 2007, which Tuskegee denies in court record.

Quinn said ABI investigators sought her out after discovering photos of her on Kelly's phone. Quinn spoke to investigators and turned over diaries she had kept since she was 14 about Kelly's alleged abuse. Three days later, he was arrested.

"They told me they felt he was a threat and a danger to my life," Quinn said.

According to state court records, Kelly spent several months in jail on the criminal charges but eventually bonded out. Since 2015, his Alabama criminal trial has been continued eighttimes. His defense attorney filed several continuance requests due to scheduling conflicts, according to court records, but in October 2019 filed a motion to dismiss the criminal indictment, stating the state had failed to turn over Kelly's phone and related evidence, calling it "egregious" and "gross misconduct" on the state's part.

Quinn continues to go to court every trial term and expected the case to go to trial this spring, before the coronavirus pandemic delayed it yet again. Though frustrated that her case has yet to go to trial in criminal court, Quinn plans to take the stand in federal court.

"Stuff that happened to me years ago, it seemed like it happened to me yesterday," Quinn said. The summary judgment against Kelly brings some closure, but "I'm still walking around in fear. This is something I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life. This might bring some closure so I can put one foot in front of the other, instead of just standing in this one spot."

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Melissa Brownat 334-240-0132or mabrown@gannett.com.

Read or Share this story: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2020/08/31/tuskegee-woman-alexandria-quinn-sues-police-department-former-officer-levy-kelly/5494995002/

More:

Plagued by criminal court delays and COVID-19, lawsuit against former Tuskegee cop also lingers - Montgomery Advertiser