Bridges Randle, also known as Dr. Oluwafemi Banjoko was found not guilty of two counts of Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law by a jury in the Western District of Tennessee.
Bridges Randle Jr, also known as Ajamu Abiola Banjoko or Oluwafemi Abiola Banjoko, was found not guilty of two counts of Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law by a jury in the Western District of Tennessee.
Randle, who was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in June 2022 while he was on his way to work at the University of the Virgin Islands, was being sought on an outstanding Tennessee warrant. The charges stem from incidents dating back over 20 years, in which he was accused of raping two women while on duty as a police officer with the Memphis Police Department (MPD).
In one of the cases, he pleaded guilty to official oppression and served a one-year probationary sentence, while the other case resulted in his acquittal.
The charges of which he was most recently acquitted had to do with the question of whether the women in question were deprived of their civil rights – specifically the right to bodily integrity – by Mr. Randle’s behavior, which occurred while he was employed in a public law enforcement capacity.
Prosecutors argued that Randle had gained access to these women through his official duties as an MPD Police Officer, and willfully used the power and authority conferred upon him by the state to rape the women. In the incident to which he pleaded guilty, Mr. Randle used a marked police cruiser to transport the woman to premises utilized by the MPD, intimidated her with his service weapon, and raped her while he was wearing his police uniform.
Nevertheless, following the three-day trial, jurors unanimously voted Randle not guilty of depriving the women of their rights under color of law.
While Mr. Randle’s legal concerns arising from the two reported incidents of sexual assault might now be over, the question of how he was able to obtain official government documents from the Virgin Islands based on false information has not yet been answered by local authorities.
In earlier reporting on his arrest, Consortium journalists noted that after two name changes and his arrival in the territory, Randle was able to obtain a driver’s license in which the Virgin Islands is listed as his place of birth, instead of Mississippi. He was also able to obtain employment with the University of the Virgin Islands after being fired, in 2012, from Georgia State University’s Upward Bound program for several incidents of sexual harassment of minor girls.
Neither territorial officials nor representatives from UVI have publicly addressed how Mr. Randle was able to operate in the territory with such a history, although at the time of his arrest UVI officials promised to investigate the matter.
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