Trooper ordered couple to strip

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Trooper ordered couple to strip

By Lisa Black
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 17, 2005, 8:32 PM CDT

An Illinois State Police trooper confessed Friday that he ordered a young man and woman to strip and urinate during a traffic stop on Interstate Highway 94 near Northbrook, authorities said.

Trooper Jeremy M. Dozier, 31, of Beach Park, was charged in Cook County Circuit Court with four counts of official misconduct, authorities said.

The couple had undressed to their underwear at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday when they managed to drive away and call 911, authorities said. A dispatcher told them to meet a police officer at the Lake Forest I-94 oasis for help.

"Guess who the officer is?" asked Robert Podlasek, a Cook County assistant state's attorney. "It's him ... It's like a bad movie."

Dozier was released after he posted $5,000 bail Friday in the courtroom of Judge Karen Thompson Tobin in Rolling Meadows.

Dozier, a 10-year state police employee, has been suspended with pay, said department spokesman Lt. Lincoln Hampton. After internal affairs agents questioned him, Dozier wrote a confession, Podlasek said.

Authorities identified the couple as a 22-year-old Wauconda man and an 18-year-old Vernon Hills woman. They had left a party and were on their way home in the man's 2003 Jaguar when they pulled over on the shoulder of the Eden Spur to talk, Podlasek said.

Dozier arrived in an unmarked car, shined a flashlight into their car and ordered the man to take a Breathalyzer test in the squad car, Podlasek said. Dozier gave the woman a Breathalyzer test in the Jaguar, he said.

After telling the man his girlfriend failed the test, the trooper asked them what they thought he should do, refusing their suggestions that he ticket them or assign them community service, Podlasek said.

"He says, `What can we do that's embarrassing to punish you so you get the message that underage people shouldn't be drinking?' " Podlasek said. "He's creating his own little system of punishment."

The trooper ordered the two to take off their clothes, run to a ditch along the shoulder of I-94, urinate and run back, Podlasek said.

"The male victim is down to his boxer shorts. She's down to her underwear," Podlasek said. "The officer steps back to get a better look at the girl. They take off."

After discovering the same officer at the Lake Forest oasis, the couple drove to the man's home, where his parents called police.

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Tribune reporters Courtney Flynn and Jodi S. Cohen contributed to this report.


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State cop is hit with new charge
Trooper made 2nd young couple strip, officials say

By Lisa Black, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Barbara Bell contributed to this report
Published June 24, 2005


For the second time in less than a week, an Illinois state trooper was charged Thursday with making a young couple disrobe during a traffic stop.

Investigators are checking whether he was involved in other such incidents, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Although Robert Podlasek, a Cook County assistant state's attorney, said he was aware of at least three or four more complaints about the trooper, "with something like this, I'm not sure people will be willing to come forward and say they were forced to run around naked," he said.

Jeremy M. Dozier, 31, of Beach Park was charged Thursday with official misconduct in an incident first reported in April. He already faces four other charges of official misconduct stemming from a similar incident reported near Northbrook on June 16.

"We're getting information on other potential incidents," Podlasek said.

Dozier posted $3,000 bail at the Gurnee Police Department and was released before noon Thursday. He has been suspended with pay from the state police, where he worked for the last 10 years.

Last week, Dozier confessed that he ordered a young couple to remove their clothes and urinate in a ditch during a traffic stop on Interstate Highway 94 near Northbrook, Podlasek said.

After stripping to their underwear, the couple managed to drive away and call for help, authorities said.

A police dispatcher told them to meet an officer at the Lake Forest oasis, but when they arrived, they recognized the officer sent as Dozier, who was driving an unmarked squad car, authorities said. They drove away again, this time to Wauconda, where the man's parents lived, authorities said.

After Dozier was arrested and charged in that case, investigators recalled a similar complaint reported by a couple in Gurnee on April 29, Lake County State's Atty. Michael Waller said.

"They get his photograph and the victims identified Jeremy Dozier as the offender," Waller said. "It was putting two and two together."

In the April incident, a teenage girl and her boyfriend told authorities they were parked in a car about 11:15 p.m. behind a Hampton Inn at 5550 Illinois Highway 132, Gurnee police said.

A man opened the car door, identified himself as a police officer and told the couple to get out, go to a nearby construction area and run around unclothed, police said.

"He said he would do this instead of calling their parents," Waller said.

Because the couple identified the man as a Gurnee police officer, investigators initially looked within their own department but did not question state police, Waller said.

Illinois State Police are conducting an internal investigation, officials said.

Gurnee police declined to release a photograph of Dozier, saying it could taint the investigation if more victims come forward and are asked to identify a suspect.

"Obviously, everyone is innocent until proven guilty," Gurnee police Cmdr. Jay Patrick said. "Should these allegations be found true, it's unfortunate."

Dozier has no history of disciplinary actions, said Lt. Lincoln Hampton, spokesman for the state police.

Official misconduct is a felony carrying a maximum penalty of 5 years in jail.