Matthew Vernon Donnelly told the jury that he was only trying to help a woman who was passed out drunk in the passenger’s seat of her boyfriend’s car during the early hours of New Year’s Day in 2014.
But the jury believed the woman, who said she woke up finding the Lake County sheriff’s deputy fingering her vagina, telling her she was “fucking sexy.”
Moments earlier, Donnelly had placed her boyfriend in his patrol car where the dash cam had stopped recording for 22 minutes during the time when he sexually assaulted her.
However, the woman’s DNA was found all over his steering wheel, flashlight and gear shifter. And at no point in the evening was the woman inside his patrol car.
He was arrested less than a month after the incident and fired shortly thereafter.
The verdict came in at 5 p.m. EST today. A conviction of sexual battery by a law-enforcement officer.
According to the [__Orlando Sentinel:__](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/lake/os-cop-trial-sexual-battery-matthew-donnelly-20150513-story.html)
> Donnelly hung his head as verdict from the three-man, three-woman verdict was read about 5 p.m. The Minneola resident faces a penalty of up to life in prison.
> Earlier, his demeanor remained controlled and polite through roughly one hour of testimony and cross-examination. In the 37-year-old ex-deputy’s explanation of what took place on New Year’s Day 2014 he stressed that he was simply seeking to aid a distressed and intoxicated couple.
> Donnelly denied that he assaulted the woman, now 26, or that he threatened to arrest her boyfriend. He took the stand during the second day of testimony in his trial on a charge of sexual battery by a law-enforcement officer for allegedly groping the woman during a roadside encounter with her and her boyfriend.
> Depicting the woman as tearful and “hysterical,” he said the boyfriend kept disrupting his attempts to get a handle on the situation. Donnelly explained that he ultimately asked the boyfriend to sit inside the police cruiser for about 10 minutes so he could talk to the woman free of interruption.
> He said he switched off some of his cruiser lights — thereby deactivating the dash-cam — because they are “annoying” and can be blinding. But the recording system can restart itself without warning under certain conditions, he pointed out.
> “It would be stupid for me to do something in front of a car, in front of the camera” when it could start recording at any time, he testified.
Donnelly faces life in prison, but it’s not clear at this time if he will be sentenced today or at a later date. Come back later for more details as this is a breaking story.
[__Click here for more details__](http://photographyisnotacrime.com/2015/05/florida-deputy-on-trial-for-sexually-assaulting-woman-after-turning-off-dash-cam/) on the story.