Tenn. Trooper Indicted for Porn Star Tryst
The former highway patrolman faces 10 charges tied to inappropriate conduct.
Oct. 16, 2007 -- A Tennessee grand jury today indicted a former state trooper — who allegedly videotaped sexual favors from a porn star, after disregarding illegal painkillers found in her car — on 10 charges stemming from inappropriate conduct in two separate traffic stops.
James Randall "Randy" Moss, 40, faces two counts of tampering with evidence, six counts of official misconduct and two counts of official oppression connected to the pair of incidents last year, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced in a news release.
"Moss is accused of stopping females for traffic violations where he would inappropriately approach them in a sexual nature," the release read. "If they complied, he would lessen their punishments."
The indictment followed an investigation that began in May 2007, when porn star Justis Ellen Richert, who performs under the name Barbie Cummings, posted a blog recounting sordid details of an alleged escapade with Moss, in which she performed oral sex on the trooper as a thank you for his disregard of narcotics found in her car.
In the blog, Richert, 21, recounted that, after pulling her over, the trooper found her "happy pills" — painkillers — while searching the vehicle. The trooper explained that the punishment for narcotics possession would likely prevent her from leaving the state, at which point Richert said she became upset and started to cry. Asked why she was crying, Richert said she told him that as a porn star under contract, she must travel from Knoxville to Los Angeles once a month to shoot scenes.
She said the two then moved inside Moss' cruiser where she said he asked about Web sites on which she might be featured. Richert gave him the domain name for her blog, and, according to her blog, the two of them watched clips from two of her movies on the laptop in his cruiser.
Then the trooper took "the hand full (sic) of pills and scatters them in the brush next to the interstate," she wrote in the blog. After that, she claimed he asked her to follow him to a secluded place, where she performed oral sex, while he allegedly took photographs and short video clips, using a hand-held camera from his cruiser.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol suspended Moss after learning about the allegations. After reports involving other potential cases of misconduct emerged, a criminal investigation was launched and Moss resigned.
Jack Lowery Sr., Moss' lawyer, told ABC News that his client will plead not guilty to the charges. Lowery said that many of the charges in the indictment are repetitive. "When you sift through it, it has three actual charges in it," Lowery said.
Lowery also said that Moss, who now works on a construction job, has acknowledged that he made some judgment errors. Lowery pointed out that Moss still issued Richert a speeding ticket, a move he says his client would not have made if he were trying to hide the porn star's traffic stop.
"If my client was going to have a sexual encounter with a woman on the road, one of the dumbest things he could do is give her a ticket."
Moss was released after posting $2,500 bond.