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Warrant: Woman sergeant had sex with inmates

Mike Miller  —  8/29/2008 5:30 am

Fitchburg police are investigating allegations that a woman sergeant at the Oakhill Correctional Facility had sex with two male inmates, according to a search warrant complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court Thursday.

The search warrant allowed Fitchburg police to obtain DNA evidence and a handwriting exemplar from the sergeant, in hopes that it will help establish the credibility of one of the two inmates allegedly involved.

Under state law enacted in 2003, it is illegal for a correctional officer to have sex with an inmate and to do so is classified as second degree sexual assault, which carries a maximum penalty of 40 years of prison and extended supervison.

The search warrant documents show that one inmate claims to have had a sexual relationship with the sergeant from January to July of this year and he also claimed to act as a "lookout" for a second inmate while that inmate had sex with the sergeant.

When both correctional officials and Fitchburg police were investigating the matter in July, the second inmate denied having ever had sex with the sergeant, but said he talked to her frequently and spends a lot of time in her office and speculated that other inmates are jealous of that and are making up stories to get the sergeant in trouble.

But in mid-August that inmate told a captain at the facility near Oregon that he had sex with the sergeant and provided investigators with letters he said the sergeant wrote to him, including some she allegedly wrote after she had been placed on administrative leave during the investigation.

Investigators hope to use hand writing comparison and possibly DNA evidence, if it exists, to determine whether or not the accused sergeant wrote the letters.

The second inmate told investigators in a taped interview on Aug. 21, that he and the sergeant talked all the time in her office and said "prison didn't exist when we were talking." He said the sergeant did not treat him like a criminal and seemed to have respect for him.

When she returned from administrative leave in April, he said, the relationship changed. He said the sergeant said she would like to have a relationship with him when he got out of prison.

When they were alone some time later they began touching each other, the inmate said, and he wanted to have sex but the sergeant said no because she was worried about her job.

But their relationship escalated, the inmate said, and included having sex several times in the sergeant's office.

The inmate said he initially lied about his involvement with the sergeant because he did not want her to lose her job at Oakhill. He was telling the truth now, he said, because "he wants it known that the sex was consensual, and that he did not rape" the sergeant.

The Oakhill institution went through a similar investigation in 2006 when two women correctional officers, Heather Bartosch, 31, and Christine Roberge, 41, were charged and convicted in criminal court of having sex with male inmates. Both lost their jobs and were sentenced in court to two years probation with a provision they could not hold law enforcement or corrections jobs.

No charges have yet been filed in the current investigation.

Mike Miller  —  8/29/2008 5:30 am