A former Memphis police officer, indicted of civil rights violations in 2022, has been acquitted by a jury in Western Tennessee District Court. The verdict in favor of defendant Bridges Randle Jr. came Thursday at the end of a four-day trial.
Jurors acquitted Randle of depriving two women of their rights while acting under color of law as a police officer. They also acquitted him of the same charge, enhanced with allegations that the offenses included sexual assault against the complainants.
One incident involving a woman identified as K.T. was reported to authorities in June 2002. The second set of allegations involved a woman identified as N.M. reported to police in July 2001. Authorities in Memphis filed a federal indictment against Randle more than twenty years later, on June 9, 2022.
At the time he was apprehended by FBI agents and extradited to face those charges, the defendant was living and working on St. Thomas under the name Oluwafemi Banjoko.
The resolution of pretrial motions took up much of the first day of trial on Monday before Chief District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman. Prosecutors began presenting testimony and evidence on Tuesday, including testimony by Randle’s first accuser.
After the government closed its case on Wednesday, the defense filed a motion of acquittal that was denied. Randle did not testify and presented no witnesses on his behalf.
A revised jury instruction was filed by the judge in the midst of deliberations after jurors sent a note saying they had decided on one of the charges but were deadlocked on the other.
Lipman sent an instruction directing jurors to return to their deliberations. In the end, they decided to acquit the defendant of all charges.
Court records filed in June suggest the government’s efforts to prove the case relied on statements made by K.T. and N.M. over that 20-year period. Lipman allowed some statements to be heard by the jury, including outcry statements made to medical personnel and to friends immediately after the alleged incidents.
Other statements made for the record were declared inadmissible.
The final entry in the case record was made on Friday when Randle was allowed to retrieve property presented as evidence during the trial by the prosecution.
