The woman who falsely accused a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper of sexual assault after she was pulled over for apparent drunk driving could face charges, according to the Ellis County district attorney.
Sherita Dixon-Cole accused DPS trooper Daniel Hubbard of “forcefully groping” her in a sexual assault inside and outside of his cruiser. Her claims were shared more than 50,000 times online, thanks to posts by Dixon-Cole’s attorney and social activist Shaun King.
But the two-hour dashcam footage released Tuesday night shows no sign of wrongdoing. It shows Hubbard administering multiple field sobriety tests, removing two bottles of alcohol from her and spotting what he believes is an alcoholic drink in a cup holder.
“I see an officer who conducts himself exactly as society demands police conduct themselves today: Beyond reproach,” Ellis County DA Patrick Wilson said. “Tragically, that officer still was publicly and maliciously persecuted.
“What happened to that officer is a shame.”
Wilson said his office is “investigating the possibility” of charges against Dixon-Cole. He says there was “no apparent motive” for the claims and he is “flabbergasted” as to how the story came out.
“When I went to the DPS office to watch the video, I fully expected to see some measure of tension or aggravation between the officer and the woman being arrested,” he said. “The world has now seen that there is nothing of the sort on that video.”
DPS said it was appalled that anyone would make such “despicable, slanderous and false accusations” against a peace officer.
Filing a false police report is a Class B misdemeanor in Texas, according to Section 37.08 of the Texas Penal Code.
Merritt on Wednesday released an apology for “amplifying the claims to the point of national concern.” King deleted his post about the allegations and later addressed the situation in a blog post on Medium.
King wrote that he reviewed the dashcam video and was "genuinely baffled" by Dixon-Cole's claims, saying "she victimized us."
"What’s just so baffling is that Sherita was calm and respectful the entire time," he continued. "Her fiancé was calm and respectful. The officer was calm and respectful. From start to finish Sherita Dixon-Cole was in the custody of the officer for about an hour. It was normal and without incident."