A former Alabama legislator who served as a co-chair of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign in the state has been arrested and charged with first-degree sex abuse, police confirmed Wednesday.
The incident that Perry Hooper Jr. is charged with happened on Aug. 16 in the 100 block of Commerce St., which is the address of the Hampton Inn & Suites Montgomery-Downtown.
Hooper, 67, was arrested Tuesday, said Capt. Saba Coleman, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery Police Department. He was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Facility and his bond set at $15,000. But there were no details about what Hooper is alleged to have done posted on the jail website.
Also, there appeared to be some confusion about which agency actually arrested Hooper.
Coleman said Hooper was "taken into custody" by the U.S. Marshals Task Force. But Dante Gordon, the chief deputy U.S. Marshal in Montgomery, said they weren't involved in Hooper's arrest.
Asked to clarify, Coleman said in an email: "The US Marshals are our partnering agency and receive all our violent crime warrants. Charges that Hooper is facing fits the criteria as such."
Hooper, who is a Republican, served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1984 to 2003. He is the son of a former Alabama chief justice, Perry Hooper Sr., who served from 1995 to 2001.
“The Alabama Republican Party strongly condemns all forms sexual abuse and sexual assault,” the state GOP said in a statement released after Hooper's arrest. “We are committed to personal rights and public safety. We will be monitoring this situation closely it makes its way through the judicial process.”
