The admission of a Louisiana State Police lieutenant that he paid a Rapid City hotel front desk clerk $200 dollars for sex while there for a work-related conference may have helped him dodge a rape charge.
44-year old Kirk Thibodeaux has been on administrative leave since being arrested on a charge of hiring for sexual activity. He made his first court appearance in Rapid City last Wednesday and has a hearing set for Nov 2.
WFAB-TV in Baton Rouge obtained investigative records from both the Rapid City police and Pennington County Sheriff’s office that lay out 2 very different accounts of what happened at the hotel in the early morning hours.
The reports say the clerk lied to officers by telling them Thibodeaux approached her for help with the air-conditioner in his room and to “just hang out for 10 minutes,” then gave them an explicit retelling of what she claimed happened inside the room including their having intercourse and that she was afraid to stop in case he became violent.
Thibodeaux told the officers to check the woman’s wallet because he’d given her $200, which she said she thought was a tip and not for any sexual favors. Hotel security video shows Thibodaux handing the woman cash near the hotel elevator,
He claimed the woman never asked him to stop during sex and that he couldn’t have forced her because she was bigger than him – adding that he remembered she said she was married and felt guilty about having sex with him.
He also told the arresting officers he at first thought they were just pretending to arrest him as part of a practical joke being played on him by friends from the conference.
The next day, the woman changed her story and told police Thibodeaux paid her $200 dollars to go to his room and hang out. She said she went because she felt he was a “lonely person and just wanted company in his room,” but that she told him she was married and not a sex worker.