By: Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Stillwater man accused of sexual battery of a female clerk at a convenience store on E. Sixth Street at 4:31 am on Oct. 16 was arraigned Tuesday from the Payne County Jail.
Anthony Murral Bourland, 41, “had caused problems at the store before and was banned,” the clerk told Stillwater Police Officer Jeremiah Johnson, an affidavit alleged.
The clerk said “she was afraid of Bourland” because she is small and he is very large, the affidavit alleged.
“She went on to tell me she has seen Bourland acting very odd on his previous visits” and suspected he might have been on drugs, the officer wrote in his affidavit.
“When he came behind the counter, she asked him to leave, but he refused,” the affidavit alleged.
“She told me as she squeezed past Bourland in the small area behind the counter, he grabbed her by wrapping both his arms around her.
“While he did this, he also attempted to pull her shirt up and stick his hands under her shirt as he reached for her breasts,” the affidavit alleged.
The clerk said “she was able to get away from Bourland and she pleaded with him to exit from behind the counter.
“She told him she could get fired and she did not want to lose her job,” the affidavit alleged.
But after briefly leaving and returning, “Again Bourland grabbed her and attempted to put his hands up her shirt,” the affidavit alleged.
The clerk said she got free from Bourland again, and this time she went outside to seek help from a male employee, who was able to call police, the affidavit alleged.
When video surveillance footage of the entire incident was retrieved, “I saw the events unfold just as she described them,” the officer alleged in his affidavit.
If convicted of sexual battery of the store clerk, Bourland could be given a prison term of as much as 10 years, court records show.
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