A Secret Service agent who drives former first lady Michelle Obama is charged with criminal harassment and witness intimidation.
Douglas Vines, 53, was arraigned in Edgartown District Court in Massachusetts last Friday, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Vines’ attorney entered a not guilty plea, Edgartown District Court Clerk Liza Williamson told CNN.
According to a police report, Vines’ ex-girlfriend told police he harassed her when she declined to have sex with him. The woman said they had been dating for two months when he “went off the handle” one evening.
She said Vines shouted at her, and text her that she was “messing with the wrong person,” according to the police report.
The woman said Vines used his position as a Secret Service agent on Michelle Obama’s security detail to intimidate her “while attempting to get her to come back out and have sex with him,” the report says.
The woman told police Vines said that, as a Secret Service agent, he had ways to “ping” her phone, hack her phone, read her text messages, and that he had a sample of her DNA.
Vines reportedly said he had recorded the woman without her knowledge, and that he could have her deported since she was not a US citizen.
She said Vines had nude photos of her but she doesn’t remember sending him the photos or consenting to have the photos taken.
The woman provided police with two pictures Vines sent her, including a shirtless picture of herself with a hand against her breasts and “her attention turned in another direction,” the police report says.
A judge issued an abuse order of protection directing Vines to stay away from the woman and not contact her.
US Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Vines was placed on administrative leave, his security clearance is suspended and “his equipment and access to any Secret Service facility” have also been suspended pending an investigation.
Guglielmi said Vines was removed from Mrs. Obama’s security detail “until the criminal component and our personnel investigation is concluded.”
