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East
East
A probable cause affidavit alleging Rodger Dale Allen East, 27, of Nederland, committed a third-degree felony of tampering with a witness prompted a Jefferson County grand jury to issue an indictment for the charges on Jan. 24.
East, while in the custody of the Jefferson County Jail under investigation for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against his parents and being held on a parole violation, told detectives he wished to report a sexual assault. According to investigators, the allegation was completely false as the alleged sexual assailant passed a polygraph test proving otherwise.
Detective Cody Perkins with the Nederland Police Department (NPD) was able to listen to recorded phone calls East made from the jail on Nov. 9, 2023, telling his cousin to tell his mother that “if his mother and stepfather are going to press charges on him, it will not be good for them and he says he will say his stepfather had been molesting him since he was 13 and his stepfather would go to jail, too,” Perkins reported in his statement.
East went on to call his aunt on Nov. 14, 2023, telling her that, if his mother was going to put him in jail, he would make sure his stepfather was “f****d over” and said his stepfather would be facing 99 years, too. That same day, East made a similar call to his cousin and told her that, if he was going to jail, everyone was going to jail with him.
Nov. 16, 2023, East called his mother and told her to call the police and drop the charges and he would “recant his statements to Detective Perkins if they did,” Perkins further detailed.
“I believe Rodger fabricated the allegations of sexual assault against his stepfather to use them to get his mother and stepfather to drop the charges,” Perkins reiterated.
East remained in custody at the Jefferson County Correctional Facility with the following charges as of press time: parole violation, public intoxication, tampering with a witness and terroristic threat of family/household.