02:45 PM CDT on Monday, July 3, 2006

Houma Courier

HOUMA -- A deputy arrested last week on the allegation that he had sex with a teenage girl was charged with making unwanted sexual advances against a woman while he was an officer in Florida in 1991.

Brunet.

Sgt. Glenn Brunet, 46, of Bourg, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of carnal knowledge of a juvenile stemming from allegations that he had consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl, authorities said.

Brunet has denied any sexual involvement with the girl but was fired after his arrest, Terrebonne Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Saturday.

Larpenter said Brunet’s personnel file in Terrebonne Parish contains nothing but " ëat-a-boy" letters commending his service and that he is not aware of any previous allegations, sexual or otherwise, against Brunet. A background check would have been done when Brunet was hired, so the sheriff intends to look into whether the Florida arrest was known of at the time.

Brunet was first hired in Terrebonne Parish in the 1980s under then-Sheriff Ronnie Duplantis, Larpenter said. When Sheriff Charlton P. Rozands was elected, Brunet was laid off as part of departmental budget cutting, Larpenter said, but he was rehired by Rozands shortly afterward. He remained with the Sheriff’s Office for several years, before moving to Ocala, Fla., and beginning work with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department on Aug. 14, 1990, according to payroll records there.

It was slightly more than a year after Brunet was hired in Marion County that he was fired and arrested, according to news reports at the time. Whether he was ever convicted on the misdemeanor charges there could not be determined this weekend.

In a cell-phone conversation Saturday afternoon, Brunet declined to speak to a reporter on the advice of his attorney, James Alcock of Houma, but said he would look forward to telling his side of the story "at the right time."

1991: FIRED AND ARRESTED

Around 3 a.m. Sept. 7, 1991, Brunet was on patrol and pulled over a car driven by Deborah Davis Willard, who was 27 at the time, for a faulty headlight, according to a Sept. 9, 1991, article titled "Deputy accused of sexual advances, fired," in the Ocala Star-Banner. Willard told the Star-Banner at the time that she was driving home from a nightclub with two other people, and Brunet told her continue home without a ticket.

About two miles down the road, Willard told the newspaper, an oncoming car forced her to swerve slightly off the road, and Brunet’s patrol car appeared again, pulling her over. The officer gave her a roadside sobriety test, then told her he would follow her home to make sure everything was all right, Willard said.

Once at the house, Brunet got another call and left but returned 30 minutes later and entered the house without Willard’s permission, the woman said. She had changed into her nightgown, and Brunet took off his shirt, vest and gun belt, and sat down on a sofa next to her and began kissing her face, Willard told the newspaper. She said she and the others at the house were not sure what they could do to stop him because he was a deputy, the article states.

Willard said she asked Brunet to leave, then went in her bedroom and closed the door, but he came in a few minutes later and began rubbing her back and trying to take her nightgown off her shoulders. She said she slapped his arm away twice, and he left without any further interaction.

Later the same day, Willard made an official complaint at the Sheriff’s Office, and, after an internal-affairs investigation, Brunet was fired at 9:20 p.m. for conduct unbecoming of an officer, said Randy Randolph, a spokesman for the Marion County Sheriff’s Department.

On Sept. 11, 1991. prosecutors filed two charges of misdemeanor battery against Brunet -- one for the alleged kissing and one for his alleged pulling on her nightgown. He was arrested that day, booked into jail and released 30 minutes later on his own recognizance, according to the newspaper.

Newspaper accounts, if any exist, regarding whether Brunet was convicted of the misdemeanors or whether the charges were dropped could not be located Saturday.

1994-2006: ëIMPECCABLE RECORD’

Larpenter said that when Brunet returned to Louisiana and applied to work with the Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office in 1994, a background check was done, and his personnel file indicates no criminal record and no other reports of wrongdoing. In the coming week, Larpenter said he will make a closer investigation into the charges in Florida -- whether they were ever proven, which officer performed Terrebonne’s background check and what else might have come up during the hiring process.

"Allegations are one thing, but convictions are another," Larpenter said.

Larpenter said he was personally unaware of the previous allegations against Brunet, and that investigators pulled up Brunet’s record when they arrested him and found it to be clean. If Brunet was found innocent or the charges were dismissed, he could have had the misdemeanors expunged from his record, Larpenter said.

If Brunet had been known to have a conviction for those allegations, Larpenter said he thought it was unlikely that the deputy would have been rehired in Terrebonne Parish, though it would depend on the circumstances.

Since his most-recent hiring with the Terrebonne Sheriff’s Office, Brunet has spent the past 10 years working as a school resource officer at South Terrebonne High School. Schools Superintendent Ed Richard could not be reached for comment this week, and South Terrebonne principal Kenneth Delcambre is out and did not return a telephone call.

"Everyone has appreciated his work in the school system," Larpenter said. "He had an impeccable record in the years he’s worked here."

Officials have said the alleged sexual encounters took place while Brunet was off duty, but it is unclear whether the girl was a South Terrebonne student or if he otherwise met her through his work.

The Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office assisted with the investigation because the girl lives there, Larpenter said, but declined to provide any further details about the nature of Brunet’s alleged relationship with the girl, citing her age and the fact that the investigation is ongoing.

More charges may be forthcoming, the sheriff said, and encouraged anyone with information about the case to call the Sheriff’s Office at 876-2500.

Frank Stanfield, region editor of the Ocala Star-Banner, contributed to this report.