assaulted

But when they got to Borders’s apartment, he didn’t leave, according to a lawsuit obtained by The Washington Post. Instead, she alleges, he followed her into her apartment, waited until she passed out on her bed, and then sexually assaulted her.

In the lawsuit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on Tuesday, she said the man — former Louisville detective Brett Hankison — left her “physically injured and mentally battered.” And her attorneys allege that Hankison had a long history of preying on women.

Hankison, 44, made national headlines this year as one of three Louisville police officers directly involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor, a Black emergency medical worker who was killed while police raided her home in March. In September, a grand jury in Jefferson County indicted Hankison, who was fired in June from his job as a detective, with three charges of wanton endangerment in the first degree, alleging that he had endangered the lives of Taylor’s neighbors None of the officers faced charges connected to Taylor’s death.

Hankison has pleaded not guilty to the wanton endangerment charge. His criminal defense attorney, Stew Matthews, didn’t immediately return a message regarding the sexual assault lawsuit. It’s not clear who is representing him in civil court.

Borders said she first met Hankison in 2017 as he worked security at several bars in the area and they had a mutual friend.

On April 20, 2018, Borders joined a group of friends at a bar, where she had several drinks and spent some time talking with Hankison, who was in his Louisville Metro Police Department uniform and working security at the bar.

“Given that Margo was alone and that Hankison was sober and the police, she liked having that protection,” the lawsuit says. “The two looked over social media and laughed over the actions of some other patrons of the bar.”

As last call approached, the suit claims, Hankison dissuaded Borders from calling an Uber and offered to drive her home. He walked her to her door and then “invited himself inside her apartment and sat on her couch,” according to the lawsuit.

Borders then went into her bedroom to change and fell asleep. She alleges that Hankison then “went into her room, stripped off his clothes and willfully, intentionally, painfully and violently sexually assaulted Margo.” When Borders came to, she yelled at him to get off her, to which he then scooped up his uniform and left.

Later that day, Borders said Hankison messaged her and suggested the sexual act was consensual.

The incident left her in pain, both physically and emotionally, she said, and left her sheets and mattress covered in blood. She “remained in extreme emotional duress over both the assault and the feeling that any efforts made to hold Officer Hankison accountable for his actions would backfire,” the suit claims.

Hankison has a history of allegations of misconduct while with the LMPD, the suit notes, including 50 internal incident reports on his record — none