A Transportation Security Administration officer at Washington Dulles Airport has been charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Montgomery County girl, a case that may serve as the first test of Maryland’s highest court’s recent decision that consent can be withdrawn during intercourse.
According to court documents, Troy Daniel Fisher, 25, had sex with the girl on May 22 in his Olney home. The next day, the girl told police that despite having originally consented, she withdrew that consent in the midst of intercourse.
According to court documents, Fisher told police he had sex with her but that she never asked him to stop. Fisher has been suspended from his job, a TSA spokeswoman said.
Leigh Goodmark, a board member of The Women’s Law Center of Maryland, said Fisher’s case will test a new standard in Maryland criminal law.
Earlier this year, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that Maloud Baby had raped a woman when she withdrew consent during sex.
In that case, Baby allegedly continued with the intercourse for five to 10 seconds after the woman asked him stop. The case has been sent back to Montgomery County to be reheard under the new legal interpretation.
And Fisher’s case could prove the first test of that ruling, attorneys said, although he has not yet been charged with rape.
The first step in determining whether Fisher raped the girl will be to prove there was a threat of force, said Lisa Jordan, a lawyer for the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
“No doesn’t mean no in Maryland. You also have to prove force or threat of force,” Jordan said.
And after this latest ruling, that includes a threat of force “even if the victim consented,” the court wrote.
So far, Fisher only has been charged with one count of third-degree sexual assault for having sex with a minor. In Maryland, the age of consent is 16.
