Officer facing rape charge in Houston County claims indigency

A Duke University police officer facing rape and sodomy charges of an area woman was declared indigent on Wednesday.

District Court Judge John Steensland appointed Dothan attorney Valerie Judah to represent Webster Delenn Simmons on the first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges filed against him.

Houston County Sheriff’s detectives arrested 37-year-old Simmons on Monday on charges he bound and gagged a woman as he sexually assaulted her over the weekend. Simmons, 37, of Rougemont, N.C, remains held at the Houston County Jail on a $120,000 bond.

Simmons told Steensland during his first appearance in court that he could not afford to hire an attorney to defend him in court on the charges.

“I received a letter from my employer that I was terminated,” Simmons told the judge. “I have nothing. I own nothing, zero zilch.”

Simmons asked the court when a grand jury would review the charges filed against him. Steensland said the charges would be reviewed by a grand jury in December.

Duke University Police Chief John Dailey said through an e-mail to the Dothan Eagle that Simmons had not been terminated from his job as a Duke University police officer, but had been placed on a paid suspension.

Houston County Sheriff Andy Hughes said Simmons had apparently been in the Dothan area last weekend visiting relatives. Hughes said their investigation showed Simmons is a Cottonwood native, joined the military and apparently later joined a North Carolina law enforcement agency. Simmons apparently told detectives he’d formally worked for the Raleigh, N.C., police department before his more recent job at Duke University.

Hughes said Simmons and the 34-year-old woman had been together at a local nightclub in the hours leading up to the assault, which Hughes said happened inside Simmons’ vehicle. Detectives seized evidence from inside that vehicle, which included two pair of handcuffs, a ball gag, thick white rope, an unknown power source with wires attached to a nail, along with a whip and flog. The woman apparently woke up early Saturday morning, handcuffed with a ball gag in her mouth.

Hughes said Simmons was in possession of his full police uniform, gun belt and police handcuffs at the time of his arrest, but they have since been sent back to the Duke University Police Department. But he said only the handcuffs were used during the sexual assault, which happened between 1 and 4 a.m.

Hughes characterized the crimes as a bondage rape.