MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — A former North Carolina probation officer said he will fight his federal indictment on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman he supervised in 2008.
"This is inaccurate. I mean, all of it has been false from day one," Willie James Steele told Eyewitness News on Friday night.
Steele has been fighting sexual assault allegations since he was arrested in 2009 and charged in Mecklenburg County court with two counts of second-degree rape.
Those charges are still pending, but state prosecutors said they will dismiss them now that federal charges have been filed.
Steele, who lives in Concord, made his first court appearance on the federal charges Thursday. He is free on $100,000 bond and said he plans to represent himself for now on those charges.
"Oh yes, I'm going to fight. I have no choice," he said.
A spokesman for the Department of Corrections said Steele was dismissed from his job as a probation officer in 2009.
Eyewitness News went to the home of the woman who has accused Steele of sexually assaulting her, but she was not home.