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Women groped transgender woman in bar bathroom: cops

Two women in North Carolina have been arrested after groping a transgender woman last month inside a bar bathroom, where they grabbed her and asked if she had a penis, police said.

Jessica Leeann Fowler, 31, and Amber Nicole Harrell, both of Raleigh, surrendered to police following the Dec. 9 incident at Milk Bar in Raleigh’s Glenwood South section. A friend of the transgender woman called cops the following day and reported the bathroom encounter she had endured a day earlier, the News & Observer reports.

The caller told a police dispatcher that Fowler and Harrell began chatting up his friend inside the bathroom. The conversation appeared to be congenial at first, but then one of the women grabbed the transgender woman’s genitals and asked if she had a penis, according to the 911 call, which was released Tuesday by Raleigh police.





It’s unclear whether Fowler or Harrell grabbed the woman initially, but the unwanted gesture prompted the other woman to laugh and then pull up her shirt to ask if the victim would like to see her breasts. One of the women also grabbed the transgender woman’s backside, according to the 911 call.

The unsolicited touching took place despite the victim saying a “number of times to stop,” according to the caller.

The groping then continued outside the bathroom, with at least one of the women grabbing at the victim’s stomach and buttocks. The bartender also chimed in and asked Fowler and Harrell to stop harassing the victim, according to the 911 call.

Both Fowler and Harrell are facing charges of second-degree kidnapping and sexual battery, jail records show.





Fowler, who surrendered to police Tuesday, was taken into custody on $30,000 bond at the Wake County Jail. She was no longer listed in the facility’s inmate roster as of Wednesday.

Harrell has also been released from the facility after turning herself in over the weekend and posting $50,000 bail, the newspaper reports, citing a magistrate.

Attempts to reach Fowler and Harrell, who works at a hair salon in Morehead City, were unsuccessful.





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