Using sign language to relay his testimony, Johnathan Edward Dugger said he consumed about six Bud Lights on an April 2004 evening, and then drove to the Robertsdale Winn-Dixie to buy some more.

There he ran into an acquaintance, Robertsdale police Cpl. Johnny Ray Smith, said Dugger, who was born deaf and testified Thursday in Baldwin County Circuit Court using an interpreter.

Dugger alleges that Smith, who was on duty and wearing his police uniform, then allegedly ordered the deaf man to follow him to the officer’s Robertsdale home, where Dugger was forced to perform oral sex.

Dugger, 40, was the first substantial witness in the trial of Smith, who faces charges of first-degree sodomy, sexual misconduct and use of his position for personal gain. Smith was arrested in May 2005 and is no longer employed by the Robertsdale Police Department.

Smith’s defense attorney, Donald Bolton, contends that Dugger created that story after he was arrested in February 2005 and charged with indecent exposure for flashing his private parts to public school buses on at least three different occasions.

“Mr. Dugger went from a man who exposes himself to kids on a school bus to a victim that same day,” Bolton said.

Read the full story from the Press-Register.