Bowen Turner, a well-connected South Carolina teen who received a shockingly lenient sentence of probation after pleading guilty to rape has been arrested again.
Turner, 19, was taken into custody on Sunday by theOrangeburg County Sheriff's Office, according to court records. He reported told a deputy while being booked that he "bite [his] fucking finger off" if he forced him to wear a mask in compliance with COVID protocols. He was charged with one count of public disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
Turner's Arrest a Violation of His Probation, Jailed without Bond
The incident, which was first reported by FitsNews, took place at 12:30 a.m. at a local bar. According to a report from the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office, Turner was found staggering around in the middle of a main road in Orangeburg on Sunday night and reeked of alcohol. He even lied to law enforcement, the report states.
Although the arrest is unrelated to the sexual assault cases, but the arrest is likely in violation of his current probation, according to attorney Sarah Ford, who represents the families of two of Turner's alleged victims.
"I expect that if they have not yet served a probation warrant, that they will be doing that very shortly," Ford told The Daily Beast. "It's mind-boggling, it really is. Should anybody be surprised by this? Absolutely not. He hasn't followed any of the rules... that's what happens when you have power and privilege. But I can guarantee, another person in his position who was poor, or who didn't have a private attorney, or was Black or brown, or any number of things, I don't think that they would be seeing the benefits that he's been given, time after time after time."
On Monday, Turner was served with a probation violation and ordered jailed without bond. The charge could mean six months behind bars for Turner, whose father works as an investigator for a local prosecutor and whose lawyer is a state senator.
Moreover, if found to have violated probation, Turner could face a maximum of six years in prison in accordance with his sentence, Menegakis said.
Turner Accused of Raping 3 Teenagers
Turner was accused of raping three teenagers in three counties between 2018 and 2019, but has only been tried for one.In one case, Turner allegedly raped a 17-year-old girl at a party in October 2018, six months after he was accused of rape by another teen. Turner was arrested in January 2019 and released on $10,000 bond. While he was under house arrest and awaiting trial, Turner left home more than 50 times to, among other things, play golf, go shopping at a car dealership out of state, and eat at a Columbia steakhouse.
In June 2019, while that case was pending, Turner—whose lawyers had convinced the judge to remove the teen's ankle monitor—was arrested and charged with dragging a 16-year-old minister's daughter behind a truck and raping her. In November 2021, Turner's 17-year-old accuser died from a self-inflicted injury and prosecutors dropped the case. The April 2018 case remains under investigation.
Last month, Turner pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree assault and battery in the June 2019 incident rather than the original charge of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. Judge Markley Dennis handed down a suspended jail sentence under the Youthful Offender Act, giving Turner just five years probation. If he keeps his record clean during that time, Turner will not have to register as a sex offender, a deal that sparked national outrage last month.
