One of the Hamilton County sheriff's deputies who is under investigation for a reportedly inappropriate body cavity search is now facing an $11 million lawsuit for a separate incident involving a woman who he allegedly forced to be baptized.
The lawsuit, filed in Hamilton County Circuit Court on Tuesday, claims that deputies Daniel Wilkey and Jacob Goforth deprived a woman of her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to freedom of religion and to be free from injury or harm while in custody and her Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
(...)
After searching the woman's vehicle, he asked her if she had ever been "saved" and whether she believed in Jesus Christ, the lawsuit states. He told her that God was "talking to him during the vehicle search" and that he "felt the Lord wanted him to baptize [her]."
Wilkey then told her to go inside the home she was visiting and grab two towels for a baptism, according to the lawsuit. He said if she let him baptize her, he would issue her only a criminal citation for the possession of marijuana rather than taking her to jail and that he would speak to the judge on her behalf.
