The former Mississippi Highway Patrol officer fired for allegedly recording a sexual encounter with a female friend and sharing it with fellow troopers has hit back saying she would never have been canned if she were a man.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com from outside her gun store in Brandon, Mississippi, Ivana Williams, 36, said, ‘I can’t say much right now because of legal proceedings but I was fired because I’m a trooper and I’m a woman.
‘It’s that simple,’ she added.
‘I worked with 95 per cent men and I know all their dirty little secrets. A lot of them have done worse and got nothing more than a slap on the wrist. But I don’t need to bring that all out to clear my name.’
The other woman seen on the tape has filed a lawsuit claiming Williams sexually assaulted her, videotaped it, and shared the clip with other troopers.
After Williams was named in the woman’s lawsuit, she says she was transferred from Rankin County where she lives to Bolivar County, more than a two hour drive away, without explanation
The move put her more than 100 miles away from her children, she argued in her January appeal. She was fired six days later.
An insider has painted a picture of a police department riddled with sexual impropriety and double-standards.
‘The bottom line is that there’s like 10 women troopers in MHP and 520 men and it’s one rule for the guys another for women,’ the source told DailyMail.com.
As proof of this, in her appeal against her firing, filed with the Mississippi Employee Appeals Board in February and reviewed by Dailymail.com, Williams claims that, four years earlier, three of the four male officers who signed her letter of dismissal had solicited nude photographs from her and faced no disciplinary actions.
In fact, DailyMail.com, has uncovered a litany of outrageous behavior allegedly perpetrated by male officers in the MHP.
They include one Master Sargent who recorded himself having sex with a woman on a state-issued cellphone, a case cited by Williams in her dismissal appeal.
Another recorded his wife having sex with another man, and a third was caught in a sexual act with a male trucker while on duty.
She says there are multiple occasions on which troopers have allegedly received and shared nude photographs.
Meanwhile, Williams maintains, she has paid the ultimate price for allegations that are both unproven and untrue.
Williams was let go from MHP in January following an internal investigation in which she was also accused of viewing porn sites on her state issued phone and having an open can of beer in her patrol car.
She appealed her dismissal in February claiming it was retaliatory, riddled with double-standards and bereft of any factual basis.
Williams – who has more than 100,000 followers on social media – has maintained she is ‘innocent’, claiming she never circulated the clip which she insists was filmed with consent and only shared with her then lover with her accuser’s permission.
Williams says she did not share the footage further and that her firing was ‘retaliatory’ and in response to a grievance she filed with DPS in January following her transfer.
In her appeal against her dismissal, Williams, who had a blemishless career in law enforcement and was literally once the poster girl of MHP, denied the claims against her.
She told DailyMail.com, ‘What I’ve been accused of just isn’t true. There was no assault and if there’s a video going round where is it?
‘I know the truth and I’m confident that when this goes to court in October I’ll win, and I’ll get my job back.’
Williams said she could not comment further beyond describing the situation as a, ‘she said/she said.’
The other woman in the tape is now suing Williams in federal court for $11 million in damages, alleging she sexually assaulted and recorded without her consent.
Her accuser claims she was the victim of a sexual assault while so intoxicated she was incapable of even remembering what happened.
For her part Williams has filed a countersuit in federal court demanding $20million for the damage she says the allegations have done to her reputation and business relationships.