Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Blamer Sun, Judge sentences Baltimore County police officer convicted of rape to home detention

A Baltimore County judge last week sentenced a police officer convicted of second-degree rape to four years in prison, but is allowing him to remain on home detention pending an appeal.

The office of the Baltimore County state’s attorney announced the sentence Monday in a news release. Prosecutors said that in sentencing Anthony Westerman, 27, on Friday, Circuit Judge Keith Truffer determined there was “not evidence of any psychological injury to the victim,” despite that the fact that she indicated she had received therapy.

Prosecutors said the judge remarked at the time of the verdict that what happened to the victim “may be the most traumatic moment of” her life.

“I’m disappointed in the outcome,” State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said in an interview. “I do not believe when you’re convicted of second-degree rape that home detention is appropriate and I certainly don’t believe only four years on this kind of crime is appropriate.”

But Westerman’s defense attorney, Brian Thompson, said prosecutors didn’t put evidence into the record about the victim’s trauma, and that the judge focused more in his sentencing remarks on the fact that Westerman had no prior record.
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The rape case stemmed from Oct. 4, 2017, when, according to charging documents, Westerman was at a bar in White Marsh and told a woman he would arrange an Uber to take her and her friend to the second woman’s home.

Westerman instead had the driver take all three to his home, where he allegedly raped one of the women while she was unconscious, according to prosecutors. The 22-year-old woman told her friend about the assault and the two immediately left, police said. Thompson, the defense attorney, said that evidence showed what happened was consensual.