Secret recordings obtained by NewsChannel 5 Investigates show a Middle Tennessee police officer making all sorts of indecent requests to a woman he was supposed to be protecting.
Those recordings landed South Carthage officer Frank Geisenhoffer in trouble back in December.
For the victim, they raise questions about why he's still on the job.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates attempted to get Geisenhoffer's side of the story.
"How can you defend speaking to a woman like that?" we asked the veteran officer.
"Ok, sir," he replied. "I don't have any statements."
The recordings, made by convenience store clerk Elizabeth Restrepo, are crude.
"I don't do big girls," Geisenhoffer says at one point. "Don't have to -- not with this d...k."
At another point, he tells Restrepo, "You do look good, baby. F...ing hot!" Later, he comments on the appearance of her nipples.
"Everything about Frank is scary, but it's even more scary because he has a badge," she told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
Restrepo began making the recordings in the early morning hours when the on-duty officer would visit her store. She said that he went from asking her for nude pictures of herself to showing her a video of himself masturbating.
"I didn't know what to say." she recalled. "I didn't know what to do. I honestly, I think my mind went blank, like wow, did that really just happen?"
Then, she said, Geisenhoffer asked for video of her pleasuring herself.
"I said, 'Frank, really?' - like that. He said, 'No, I'm serious.' He said, 'If you ever were to do that, give me a video. I'll pay you for it. I will owe you big!'"
That's when, after checking with one of his fellow officers, she decided to record him.
"Because I had to prove -- I just didn't want it to be an officer against a girl that just works at a convenience store," Restrepo said.
On the recordings, Geisenhoffer first asks her for nude pics of herself.
"Dude, yesterday was my birthday so I was hoping you'd send me a picture of something," he says.
Later, he asks for pictures of her sister's breasts.
"Get me a picture of those t...ies," he begs.
It's a request that, on the recordings, he makes repeatedly.
At one point, Geisenhoffer tells Restrepo, "I saw a picture on Facebook of whatever she is to you. You was gonna get me a picture of her t...ies."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates noted to Restrepo, "He comes back and asks for the same thing."
"Over and over and over," she answered.
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Restrepo said that, at first, she hadn't know how to deal with the South Carthage officer's indecent requests.
Her initial instincts: "Laugh it off kinda. 'Awww, Frank, you're crazy!' You know, whatever you have to do. What do you say?"
Did she ever say "stop it"?
"No," she acknowledged.
Why not?
"Maybe because of who he is, maybe because of the things I know about Frank, maybe because I was scared, maybe because I didn't know what to do -- he's an officer of the law."
Then, one day, while she was recording, Restrepo said Geisenhoffer reached out and touched her.
"Grabbed my hair and just laid it like that," she said, gesturing toward her breasts.
On the recording, Geisenhoffer says quietly, "Make a picture... just barely covering your nipples... barely, but with your hands on your hips."
Restrepo recalled the moment.
"I could smell his breath," she said, fighting back tears. "I didn't know what to do, but to stand there and let him do it and record him."
At some point, after Geisenhoffer heard that Restrepo might have been upset with him, he returned to the store and seemed to admit he had crossed a line.
"I did something to you here one night, and I felt bad about it," he says on one of the recordings. "I didn't touch you, but I almost did. I almost touched you -- may have -- and I felt bad about it."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates said to Restrepo, "That must have been tough."
"More than you know," she answered.
"You felt violated?"
"Absolutely."
Finally, in that last recording, the officer admits to having shown her the video of himself masturbating.
"Dude, I can get myself off. You know. In fact, you've seen me get myself off -- and I erased that too, by the way," he says with a chuckle.
Her reaction?
"I nearly jumped as high as the sky because I knew that finally I could prove that he really did show me that. And I thought, wow, finally got him. That's what I thought."
We observed, "It wasn't just your word against a police officer's word?"
"No," she said, as tear ran down her cheek.
Restrepo took her recordings to South Carthage police back in December and filed a complaint.
In a written statement submitted to his chief, Geisenhoffer essentially admitted to everything, although he claims she led him on, that she was the first to share inappropriate pictures -- something that she emphatically denies.
After hearing both sides, the chief suspended him for two weeks without pay and put him on probation for a year for his conduct in that store. (View disciplinary action below.)
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