Ex-Baltimore County police officer on home detention after rape conviction requests new trial in appeal; state opposes

A former Baltimore County police officer who was put on home detention last year for a second-degree rape conviction, angering advocates, has filed an appeal seeking a new trial.

Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Keith Truffer sentenced Anthony Westerman to four years in prison in November, but stayed his sentence pending an appeal — making it unlikely he would serve time behind bars during a lengthy appeal process, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Truffer found there was no evidence of any psychological injury to the victim. The judge’s remarks sparked backlash from sexual assault advocacy organizations, which said psychological injuries are inherent in rape cases.

Westerman has since appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, and the court record indicates that arguments in the case will be heard during the court’s October session.

His attorney, Brian Thompson, said Westerman was denied his right to a trial by jury “due to a once-a-century pandemic” and that the verdict went against “the weight of the evidence.” In the appeal, filed in May, attorneys say the higher court should overturn the trial court’s judgment and request a new trial on four of the original eight charges.

A response from the state Attorney General’s Office filed July 1 asks the court to affirm the prior judgment. A spokeswoman for the office declined to comment further, saying the office doesn’t discuss pending litigation.

The then-Baltimore County police officer was indicted in December 2019 on criminal offenses connected to interactions with three women in 2017 and 2019. Charges included counts of second-degree rape, counts of second-degree assault and other sex offenses.

Charging documents said police began to investigate Westerman in October 2019 based on reports of sexual assault. Authorities described three separate incidents: sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman in 2017, sexual assault of a 20-year-old woman in June 2019 and two attempts at kissing another 22-year-old woman later in June 2019.

At least one of the victims told police she didn’t immediately report what took place because “she knew Defendant Westerman was a Baltimore County Police Officer,” the charging documents said.

In a bench trial in August 2021, Truffer found him guilty of second-degree rape and other sex offenses in the 2017 incident and second-degree assault from one of the two encounters alleged to have taken place in late June. He was acquitted of charges in the reported assault in early June 2019.

Westerman was a police officer during the time of each allegation. The department, which issued a statement calling the allegations “reprehensible” following the criminal charges, fired him in June 2019.

TurnAround Inc. and the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault said at the time of his sentencing, in November 2021, that light sentences tell a survivor their experience was not a big deal. State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, too, said home detention and a four-year sentence for “this kind of crime” were inappropriate. He declined to comment further this week, but said prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence from the judge.

Thompson, however, said a judge staying a sentence and allowing a person to put up an appeal bond is “not at all uncommon.” He said the state had failed to reach the requirement for higher sentencing guidelines.

Seeking a new trial, Westerman’s Court of Special Appeals filing said the lower court didn’t properly confirm that Westerman’s waiver of a jury trial was voluntary, admitted hearsay testimony, and didn’t have sufficient evidence for a conviction of second-degree assault.

It argues that Westerman only agreed to a bench trial before Truffer because he was told, given a backlog of trials due to COVID-19, it was the only way to quickly resolve the cases in court. His mother said in a court hearing following his conviction that he had a “devastating” decline in his mental health between his charging and trial, including panic attacks and vomiting. And Westerman told his attorney, according to the appeal, he didn’t know whether he “would have survived another year.”

Truffer ruled against granting him a new trial, calling it a possible case of “buyer’s remorse.”

Attorneys for Westerman also objected to testimony from a woman who described what one victim told her the day after the sexual assault, arguing it was hearsay and inadmissible, and to the judge’s finding of second-degree assault because they say an attempted kiss in one of the reported encounters stopped when the woman indicated they were unwanted.

In the state’s brief responding to Westerman’s appeal, attorneys wrote there was “no hint” that his waiver of a jury trial was involuntary. “Simply because a decision is difficult does not make it coercive,” it said.

The brief also said the testimony from a witness counts as a “prompt complaint of sexually assaultive behavior,” which is an exception to hearsay rules, and that his actions in the 2019 assault do, in fact, meet the requirements of the crime.

“Westerman fails to understand that grabbing a woman without her consent is second-degree assault,” the state Attorney General’s Office wrote in the brief.