Crime & Courts

After evading sex charges, Turner, 19, arrested again in SC, records show

Bowen Gray Turner was arrested again Monday.

The South Carolina teenager who has been arrested for sex crimes in the past was most recently charged with disorderly conduct, according to Orangeburg County court records.

Further information about the incident was not available.

Messages left with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office were not returned.

A $257.50 surety bond was set for the 19-year-old Turner, who is scheduled to return to court on the disorderly conduct charge on June 2, according to court records. Turner’s arrest was first reported by FITSNews.

Bowen Gray Turner is shown in this photo provided by the Bamberg County Detention Center.
Bowen Gray Turner is shown in this photo provided by the Bamberg County Detention Center.

In April, Turner pleaded guilty to a first-degree assault and battery charge after being originally charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

In that incident, the victim told the 2nd Circuit Solicitor’s Office that on June 2, 2019, she was at a party where Turner dragged her behind a truck, pulled off her clothes and sexually attacked her, the Times and Democrat reported.

When Turner pleaded guilty to the reduced charge, Circuit Judge Markley Dennis sentenced him under the Youthful Offender Act not to exceed six years, suspended to five years of probation, according to the Times and Democrat. As a part of that sentence, the judge said if Turner violates any of the sex offender probation conditions within five years, he must register as a sex offender.

There was no word if this recent arrest violates the conditions.

Turner is not currently listed on the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s sex offender registry.

Prior to that incident, Turner was arrested on first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge on Jan. 29, 2019, Bamberg County court records show. On April 8, 2022, that charge was dismissed, court records show.

The sister of that victim said her family was told the solicitor dropped the charge “on the merit that she is no longer with us & cannot testify that it was non-consensual,” Brette Tabatabai said in a post on change.org. That victim, Dallas Stoller, died by suicide in November 2021, Fox News reported.

More than 13,000 people have signed a petition on change.org to have Stoller’s case reopened.

Also in April, the South Carolina Victim Assistance Network filed a motion saying that Ilery Bonding Co. in Orangeburg should be held accountable for failing to notify the sheriff’s office or the solicitor’s office that Turner violated a court order and left his house about 50 times “to go to multiple golf courses, sporting goods shops, a car dealership in Georgia, a steakhouse in Columbia and more,” WCSC reported.

Turner’s attorney is Brad Hutto, who is also the minority leader in the South Carolina State Senate. A message left with Hutto was not immediately returned.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

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This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 12:20 PM.

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Noah Feit
The State
Noah Feit is a Real Time reporter with The State focused on breaking news, public safety and trending news. The award-winning journalist has worked for multiple newspapers since starting his career in 1999. Support my work with a digital subscription
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