Former Knox deputy on trial for allegedly raping girl

Dennis Mills Jr. is either a cop who used his badge to garner silence from his rape victim or a cop who lost his badge and wound up in handcuffs because of her lies.

The contrast was stark as prosecutor Joanie Stewart and defense attorney Stephen Ross Johnson presented jurors Tuesday in Knox County Criminal Court Judge Scott Green’s courtroom with their respective portraits of Mills, a former Knox County Sheriff’s Office patrol lieutenant.

He is accused of raping a girl over a two-year period in 2013 – when she was 12 – and 2014 – when she was 13. The distinction is crucial. At the age of 12, the girl was, under Tennessee criminal law, a child. That means Mills faces a minimum 25-year sentence for those alleged offenses.

The News Sentinel is not identifying the relationship between Mills and the girl to protect her identity.

Stewart told jurors in her opening statement Tuesday that the girl submitted to Mills’ demands for sex because he was the law.

“No one will believe you. I’m a police officer. Those words were spoken by Dennis Mills,” Stewart said.

Stewart said the girl finally came forward in March 2014 at the urging of an older boy she met on the internet. She told her mother, who alerted authorities. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Andy Corbett headed up a probe. Mills was fired and charged.

More: Judge: Knox deputy knew his right to refuse search in child rape case

Johnson said the girl was lying, and he promised jurors a treasure trove of the girl’s own words on web-based messaging applications in a string of lies he said she has told about being raped.

“This case is about a teenager desperately seeking attention with outrageous and shocking lies,” Johnson said. “Dennis Mills is not guilty. He has been falsely accused.”

Johnson listed for jurors some of what he called “fantastical stories” the girl had made up to keep the attention of her new teenage messaging beau, including claims she had been raped by three men who killed her friend and who she later killed.

He said she targeted Mills as another means of manipulating the boy, who had grown tired of their Internet only relationship. He was 17. The girl’s parents did not approve of him as a suitor because of the age gap, Johnson said.

When she accused Mills, Johnson said she got exactly what she wanted.

“She was now smothered with attention, and she got lots of new stuff,” he said.

Prior court hearings have shown Stewart has some physical evidence to back up the girl’s allegations, including a pair of men’s underwear with DNA of Mills and the girl and a condom wrapper with the girl’s DNA on it. Those items were found in a TBI search of Mills’ Powell home.