A former highway patrol trooper was arrested Tuesday, April 14, on allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman hired to take care of him after he was seriously injured in the line of duty in Lexington County last year.

Former Master Trooper Wayne LaBounty, 63, was booked at the Lexington County Detention Center shortly before 7 a.m. on a charge of first-degree assault and battery, officials said.

The woman accused LaBounty of kissing her, touching her underneath her clothes and exposing himself to her while she was working at his home in Lexington last November, according to LaBounty’s arrest warrant, which was issued by the State Law Enforcement Division.

The document also states that LaBounty tried to put his hand down the woman’s pants and made sexually explicit comments.

“Following the encounter,” the warrants read, “he told the victim, ‘What goes on in this house stays in this house.’”

The S.C. Attorney General’s Office is handling LaBounty’s prosecution. His court appearance has not yet been scheduled.

It wasn’t immediately clear on Tuesday afternoon if LaBounty had an attorney in the criminal case. 

When the woman’s complaint first surfaced last year, Attorney Robert Goings, who was representing LaBounty in a separate case, said the allegations were “completely out of character” for the trooper.

The Lexington County Sheriff’s Department, which received the woman’s initial complaint, described her in an incident report as a home caregiver. She’d said another trooper was required to be at LaBounty’s house whenever a caregiver was around but that LaBounty made changes to the Nov. 21 caregiving schedule, leaving the two of them on their own for an hour that evening.

LaBounty was released from the Lexington County jail around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, according to Adam Myrick, the sheriff’s department spokesman.

A bond court judge allowed him to return to the community on his own recognizance, with conditions that included not contacting the complainant. He faces a $10,000 penalty if he were to violate his bond conditions, court records show.

Because LaBounty had filed a lawsuit against the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department following the Sept. 9 crash where he was injured, the department turned over the caregiver’s complaint to SLED to avoid any conflict of interest.

LaBounty went on medical leave from the S.C. Highway Patrol two days after the crash, according to his employment records with the state Criminal Justice Academy.

Three months later, in December, he retired from law enforcement work.

The S.C. Department of Public Safety, which encompasses the highway patrol, declined to comment on LaBounty’s arrest.

This story has been updated to reflect that LaBounty's court appearance has not yet been scheduled, and that he faces a $10,000 penalty if he were to violate his bond conditions, according to court records.