Lingerie modeling, Victoria Secret trips help ex-stripper win freedom

Allegations that a probation officer drove one of his charges to and from work at a strip club and asked her to model Victoria’s Secret underwear paved the way Thursday for a plea deal for a woman who could have gone to prison for skipping out on her probation.

Former Flashdance dancer Bridget McAllister accepted a plea deal that kept her out of prison for leaving the state just a year into her three-year probation sentence for robbery and allowed her to end her probation two years early.

Why such a generous deal?

Though McAllister made headlines when she turned herself in while seven months pregnant last year, her attorney, Marc Reiner, said prosecutors approached him with the deal because if he had taken the case to trial, he would have proved that McAllister hid out of state for almost two years to get away from her former probation officer, Steven Oberg.

“It was so hard in the beginning to get anyone to even believe me about what was going on,” McAllister said Thursday. “But it got so bad I remember thinking that I should’ve just taken the felony [conviction] and never gone on probation.”

When Reiner went to visit McAllister at the Palm Beach County Jail after she turned herself in, she told him she was scared of retribution from both Oberg and his wife, who came to her house and confronted her angrily over suspicions the two were having an affair.

According to a Florida Department of Corrections inspector general report, McAllister’s relationship with Oberg included rides to her job at Flashdance on Purdy Lane in West Palm Beach and a trip to a Victoria’s Secret store, where the probation officer helped her pick out underwear and later asked her to model the lingerie.

The 15-page report also shows McAllister produced text messages that detailed the inappropriate relationship, where Oberg referred to her as “princess” and “sunshine” and brought monthly probation reports to her house for her to fill out instead of requiring she come to his office like other probationers.

On Thursday McAllister said that Oberg “always had a weirdness about him from day one,” but didn’t become agressive with her until at least six months into her sentence. He started with the daily text messages, and later stated taking her to work.

McAllister said Oberd also sometimes came in to Flashdance to pick her up and saw her undressed while she was working. She said he would also routinely show up to her house unannounced, text her to say he was outside and then take her for a drive or to get something to eat.

On the day of the Victoria’s Secret trip, McAllister said Oberg picked her up on the guise f taking her somewhere to complete her community service, but then drove her to the mall. The lingerie store was the only place they vsited while they were there.

McAllister told DOC officials that when Oberg asked her to see the underwear she’d bought, she gave him a partial view by pulling down the front or back of her pants. She said though she feared his advances might lead to a request for sex, she was even more afraid that he’d violate her probation and send her to prison if she rejected him.

Department of Corrections officials on Thursday confirmed that Oberg was fired Nov. 14. When questioned about the relationship, Oberg said McAllister referred to herself as “princess” and said that he was just trying to be friendly. When questioned, Oberg referred to McAllister and a “stripper and a “crack head.”

“That is her way of life. To manipulate men into getting what she wants,” he said.

McAllister, who was freed on bail last year just weeks before giving birth to her daughter, was supposed to have a hearing Thursday before Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp over her probation violation but instead accepted a plea of time served from prosecutors.

“Even though she pleaded guilty, today she exonerated herself,” Reiner said of his client. “Even if she took the case to trial and won, the best that could have happened is she would have had to go back on probation in the same system she complained about.”

McAllister said she got in her car and headed out of Florida immediately afterward. No longer a stripper, McAllister says she is looking forward to putting the case behind her and hopes to eventually get her record expunged and her civil rights restored.

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