A Charlotte, Michigan, woman agreed to a plea deal after admitting that she lied about a rape charge she filed against a deputy last year.
In 2018, Kellie Bartlett, the wife of one-time Potterville Police Chief Shane Bartlett, filed a complaint with Michigan State Police charging an Eaton County Sheriff’s deputy with rape.
But an investigation headed by Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Erik Darling found that Bartlett was a “willing and consenting partner” in the sexual encounter she said was rape.
Now, Bartlett has pleaded guilty to lying about the rape and has accepted a plea deal on several other charges including unauthorized access to a computer, identity theft, stalking, and lying to a police officer, according to the Lansing State Journal.
If Bartlett fulfills specific requirements during the next 11 months, she will be allowed to serve any remaining sentence under a curfew in lieu of jail time, the paper added.
Sgt. Darling’s investigation turned up Bartlett’s text messages sent the day after the sexual encounter with the deputy. The texts were of a sexual nature and even mocked the sexual contact she had with the deputy.
“Had (Kellie) Bartlett been a victim of (sexual assault), these messages could be considered so grossly inappropriate as to shock the conscience,” Sgt. Darling said during his court testimony.
Bartlett was an employee of the Sheriff’s office and met the unnamed deputy through her employment. She carried on a relationship with him from 2015 to 2017. The deputy eventually ended the relationship, and that rejection apparently spurred her rape charge. The investigation also found that Bartlett began stalking the deputy. The deputy was not charged with any wrongdoing.
The woman’s police chief husband, Shane Bartlett, was also charged with crimes connected to Bartlett’s cover-up of the false rape charge. He was found guilty of misconduct and will be sentenced in January.
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