Cody Even Cheyenne Kackley (Siloam Springs (Okla.) Police Department)
No charges were filed against a 35-year-old former police officer from Oklahoma accused of driving an intoxicated woman from a casino to her home and sexually assaulting her in a bedroom before her brother walked in.
Prosecutors indicated this week that the encounter between Cody Even Cheyenne Kackley and the woman might have been consensual, and the case was removed from the court docket.
“The law gives me a clear duty to pursue charges when there is evidence of a crime and a clear duty not to pursue charges when evidence is insufficient to prove a crime,” Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Nathan Smith said in a statement emailed to Law&Crime. “During the course of our investigation, it became clear that there was reason to believe that this sexual encounter may have been consensual. Because of this, I was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime had been committed. Since I chose not to pursue charges in this case, I agree with the Judge’s decision to remove it from the criminal docket.”
Kackley’s public defender didn’t immediately return an email from Law&Crime seeking comment.
He was arrested in February. According to a probable cause affidavit, the victim told police she was at the Cherokee Casino in West Siloam, over 80 miles east of Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a friend on Feb. 11.
She drank up to 10 beers and called her brother for a ride home. While waiting for him outside, she said she and her friend were suddenly surrounded by a group of West Siloam police officers, who told her she had been accused of an incident inside the casino, the document states. They placed her in handcuffs and put her in the back of a patrol car.
After a time, she said police told her the charges had been dropped and let her go, the affidavit said. She then asked Kackley for a ride home, thinking it was safe “since he was a police officer.”
She told investigators she and Kackley “flirted back and forth with each other during the drive,” the affidavit states.
Kackley told her he was going to turn his body-worn police camera off and walked the victim to her front door, which the victim thought was “odd.”
She said the sexual assault occurred inside a bedroom and ended when her brother walked in.
Surveillance footage confirmed she was highly intoxicated at the casino and required assistance to keep from falling over, the affidavit states. She had to be removed from the casino because of her high level of intoxication.
Kackley said the woman was “wasted,” investigators wrote.
Kackley initially told investigators that he didn’t think she was drunk but eventually admitted he downplayed her intoxication “because he did not want to get arrested for what he had done,” the affidavit states.
“Cody Kackley stated the victim had trouble remembering events from early in the night and who she was with. Cody Kackley stated he would ask the victim a question, and within minutes she would forget the question due to her intoxication,” according to the document. “Cody Kackley admitted the victim was very intoxicated during the time he was with her. Cody Kackley estimated her blood alcohol level was approximately 0.20 based on his experience with intoxicated people.”
The affidavit said he admitted he “f—– up” and had “disgraced the badge” before breaking into tears and being arrested. He resigned from his job after the incident.
Law&Crime’s Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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