A Maryland Transit Administration police officer has been charged with raping a 15-year-old Elkridge girl who asked him for help finding her way home on the light rail, according to charging documents.
Officer Donald Brown was taken into custody June 24 after Howard County police were contacted by a case worker for a local foster care organization. The girl told police that she thought she was being escorted to a police station to make arrangements to get home but was instead taken to Brown's top-floor apartment in downtown Baltimore, where they had sex.
He then gave her $25 to get back home and told her to leave, according to police.
Brown was charged with first-degree rape, various sex offense charges, use of a handgun in a violent crime and kidnapping a child under age 16. He was initially ordered held without bond, though a District Court judge on Thursday set a bail at $500,000. He remained in custody Monday afternoon.
MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene confirmed that Brown is a member of the force and said he has been suspended without pay. She said the agency could not comment further.
"We do take these charges very seriously," she said. "These charges are troubling, but we need to allow the judicial process to work its course."
Greene said Brown had been an MTA officer for about two years. She said the MTA works closely with the Baltimore city and Anne Arundel County police departments, whose academies are used to train MTA officer recruits, screen applicants and conduct background checks.
The MTA police is a force of 165 sworn officers and about 90 civilian workers. The department is the primary law enforcement agency on the light rail and Metro subway systems and aboard city buses.
Parkville attorney Perry London, identified in court records as Brown's attorney, did not return a phone call seeking comment Monday.
According to charging documents, the girl gave identical accounts to Howard County police and Baltimore police, who later picked up the investigation.
In her statement, she said she got lost June 20 and ended up on the light rail in Linthicum. She saw three uniformed police officers and asked if she could use a phone to call home.
One of the officers let her use his phone and asked her what she needed. She said she needed to get back to Elkridge, and the officer told her to come with him to a police station and that he would help her, according to charging documents.
