Jury Deliberating Case Of Davie Cop Sex Assault Case
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A Broward County jury is now deliberating the fate of a suspended Davie police officer accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his teenage step-daughter in 2009.
Stephen Olenchak denied the allegations and under oath, with his parents sitting in the courtroom, tried to explain what happened on Wednesday.
He testified that he, his wife Angela and the teenager were in bed watching the cable TV show "Big Love" the night the incident happened.
Olenchak claimed his step-daughter, who was 19 at the time, placed his hands on her while he was sleeping.
"I didn't know what to do or what to say. I didn't want to embarrass her. I didn't know what to think," he told the jury. "I was hoping it would go away like a bad dream and whatever happened, would never happen again."
But the young woman claimed she was drugged an assaulted.
Prosecutors played a taped conversation between the two that investigators had arranged.
In it, Olenchak apologized to the girl and offered to go into therapy.
"I'll make it better," he told her during the phone call.
"How can I not hate you?" the girl asked.
"One day at a time," Olenchak responded. "I'll go into therapy. I'll do it right away."
The girl's mother and Olenchak's wife was re-called to the stand late Wednesday. Angela Olenchak railed against her husband over what she believes was assault.
If convicted of all charges Olenchak faces a maximum 30 years in prison.
