WASHINGTON, Aug. 5 /EMWNews/ -- Maceo Simmons, a former

officer with the Jackson Police Department in Jackson, Miss., was sentenced

to life imprisonment on Aug. 4, 2008, for sexually assaulting a 19-year-old

woman he had detained after a traffic stop, the Justice Department

announced today.



    The sentence arises out of an incident that occurred on Sept. 19, 1999.

The victim was a passenger in a car, which was pulled over by Jackson

police officers for running a stop sign. Simmons handcuffed the victim and

placed her in the back of his patrol car. He and another officer then drove

her to a remote and isolated location, where Simmons repeatedly raped the

victim while the second officer acted as a lookout. Simmons was originally

sentenced to a term of 20 years imprisonment, but that sentence was

reversed on appeal.



    "The court's sentence reflects the gravity of the defendant's egregious

conduct," said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for

the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. "Although nothing can erase

the scars of a rape, hopefully, the court's action will help the victim

feel safer knowing that the perpetrator is behind bars for life."



    The convictions resulted from an investigation by Special Agent Brendan

Sheehan, formerly with the Jackson office of the FBI, Special Litigation

Counsel Paige Fitzgerald and Trial Attorney Karima Maloney from the Justice

Department's Civil Rights Division.