As more and more high-profile stories about sexual harassment begin to emerge, a Baton Rouge woman has come forward to say she was sexually assaulted by former State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson more than three decades ago.

The woman, who identified herself to LouisianaVoice, has asked that her identity be held in confidence because the sensitivity of her occupation and to shield her teenage children from embarrassment and possible peer intimidation.

She said her husband knows about the incident but the rest of her family does not.

She said her motive in coming forward is not to get attention for herself. Instead, she said, she wants to expose him because her experience with Edmonson has been “a bitter pill” she has lived with for 35 years and that she knows “how he operates.”

“I want you to know what a fraud and phony he is,” she said, adding that she watched him as he rose through the ranks of Louisiana State Police (LSP) over the years. “I cannot imagine I am the only person who has been in a similar situation with him.” She said acquaintances of hers who also know Edmonson have told her how “handsy and flirtatious he is.”

Coincidentally, her revelations come on the same day that Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the appointment of members of his Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Policy Task Force which is charged with the responsibility of reviewing the sexual harassment and discrimination policies of each state agency within the executive branch.

The woman said she was 19 at the time and Edmonson was “probably 25 or 26.” She said her parent’s home was in the same neighborhood as Edmonson’s parents’ home. “I know the family well,” she said. I have known them since I was about in seventh grade.”

She said her family was visiting the Edmonsons and Mike Edmonson asked if she would like to ride to New Orleans with him. “I was very reluctant because I really didn’t know him that well and because of my being 19, he seemed like an ‘older man.’ Another person at the gathering sort of talked me into going, so I went. I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’ll be in good hands because he’s a policeman.’ How naïve I was.”

She said Edmonson took her to Pat O’Brien’s in the French Quarter and bought her Hurricanes with “extra shots.”

“I was probably 5-foot-two and may 115 pounds at the time, so you can imagine the effect this had. After I was completely wasted, he brought me back to his car and headed for home.”

She said Edmonson was not driving his personal vehicle, but a State Police patrol car at the time. She said he had the emergency lights on the entire trip to Baton Rouge.

“But he didn’t bring me back to my parent’s house,” she said. Instead, she said he took her to his home which at the time was in a subdivision north of I-12, just off Millerville Road.

“So, he had me, wasted, in his bed, and (he) proceeded to take off my clothes,” she said. “I was petrified and humiliated (and) I can remember just hugging myself in a ball so that he would leave me alone. He succeeded in getting some of my clothes off, but I guess it got to be too much trouble and eventually, (he) just left me alone.

“The more I think back on this, especially having a teenage daughter of my own now, the more I see how predatory this was. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’m still afraid of him, though, because he still has powerful friends. But real men, good men, do not ply women with alcohol to try to take advantage of them.”

LouisianaVoice sent an email to Edmonson in an effort to afford him an opportunity to respond to the woman’s allegations but he did not respond to the email.