Sex behind bars: Women violated in Delaware prison

When police arrested the security chief at the state women’s prison July 8 for having sex with an inmate in his office, the episode was no anomaly for Delaware.

The illegal acts that authorities say Major Fred Way III engaged in at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution were merely the latest in a string of staff-inmate sex scandals that have plagued Delaware since men began guarding female prisoners nearly a quarter-century ago.

In recent years, several male correctional officers and one courthouse security officer have been charged with sex crimes against female inmates while working at Baylor and other state facilities. One abused a prisoner in a supply closet. One violated three women at a boot camp. Another had sex with a woman twice in the laundry area, then the storage room – all in the same night.

The problem of guards having sex with women behind bars in Delaware goes much deeper than those criminal cases, however, according to court records, federal reports, a consultant study and prison insiders. Those accounts describe a longstanding culture where safeguards and oversight are lacking, sex is a commodity to be traded for privileges, and inmates and even other staffers are reluctant to report assaults because they fear retaliation.

A 2013 Bureau of Justice Statistics study based on inmate surveys found that the prevalence of staff-inmate sex at Baylor, Delaware’s only women’s prison, is more than three times above the U.S. average.

The facility off U.S. 13 near New Castle, which has about 400 convicted women and detainees, was one of four women’s prisons out of 44 surveyed nationwide with a “high rate” of sex between staff and inmates. Encounters at Baylor occur in cells, closets, kitchens, showers, common areas and the exercise yard, inmates said. Under Delaware law, a guard who has sex with a prisoner is committing a felony.

Beyond those arrested, about seven Baylor guards resigned rather than face possible prosecution for sex acts between 2006 and 2011, said Stephen L. Martelli, who headed the Correctional Officers Association of Delaware.

Martelli said then-warden Patrick J. Ryan “covered up” such misconduct even when there was DNA evidence or condoms left behind by men – because Ryan preferred to handle incidents in-house. Ryan disputed Martelli’s account, saying he referred all substantiated sexual misconduct to prosecutors.

Baylor’s legacy of troubles helped the American Civil Liberties Union convince the state to pay $287,000 in 2011 to settle a lawsuit that stemmed from one guard’s attack of a woman in her cell after she showered, court records show. The settlement gave the state Department of Correction one year to make dozens of improvements to protect women from sexual victimization, including staff training, more security cameras and new policies such as requiring two employees to be present when one enters a cell.

But it took nearly three years and more legal action by the civil rights group before a federal judge ruled in 2014 that Baylor had complied – a period during which three more guards statewide were charged with having sex with female inmates, one at Baylor, the others at the Sussex County work-release center and boot camp.

The arrest of Way, the No. 3 leader at Baylor, is strong evidence that sex problems still haunt the prison, said Richard H. Morse, the ACLU’s legal director. Way was alone in his office with the inmate, the door closed and beyond the view of security cameras – both violations of prison policy – police and prison officials said. Morse said he’s considering going back to U.S. District Court to seek further compliance.

Baylor has 91 permanent guards, of which 37 (41 percent) are men. Besides Baylor, men also work at other facilities where women can be held, such as work-release and violation of probation centers. Women also had been held at the since-closed Sussex County Boot Camp.

“Even though they have made improvements, they need to make more improvements,” Morse said. “They need to go back around the prison and look for blind spots they didn’t fix, places where they need to add cameras, places where women are still alone with men in a one-on-one situation that they need to address.”

Baylor warden Wendi L. Caple and DOC Commissioner Robert M. Coupe “need to redouble their efforts,” Morse said, “to make sure everybody who is working in the women’s prison knows that abusing an inmate is something that will never be permitted and will result in serious punishment.”

Caple, who has headed Baylor for five years, said she has tried to instill a culture where there is “zero tolerance” for sex within the prison’s walls, especially between guards and inmates.

The warden stressed that during her tenure only two guards have been found to have had sex with inmates, and both times she and her staff worked swiftly to remove the officer and refer the matter to police. Aside from Way, the other guard was Sgt. Larry Clinkscale, who was arrested in 2012.

“I know that it is a black eye and the public feels let down,” she said of Way’s arrest, “but everything we do here is to protect the public and we take that role very seriously.”

Caple had approved Way in 2014 for promotion to security superintendent even though he had never worked at Baylor, saying he was highly recommended by a hiring panel and other prison administrators. Way, 50, had been promoted through the ranks during his 27-year career even though he cost the state about $100,000 in lawsuit damages for mistreating a blind, diabetic male inmate. In separate cases, he also had been convicted of drunken driving and driving without a valid license.

Caple noted that Baylor passed an exhaustive audit this year by federal regulators for compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a landmark 2003 federal law that set standards for preventing, detecting and responding to sex abuse in prisons. For example, the facility now has about 210 cameras – triple the number when she started. Inmates also can call a toll-free number from phones inside each housing tier to report sexual misconduct.

“We’re transparent. We have nothing to hide,” said Caple, who along with Coupe and deputy warden Robert May escorted a News Journal reporter and photographer through Baylor, including the suspended Way’s office and housing tiers, where a few inmates were interviewed about conditions behind bars.

Inmate Georgette Waters, who serves on the Inmate Advisory Group that consults with Baylor administrators on various issues, said Baylor had “more male-female sexual relationships” before Caple started.

“I think they’re quite terrified” to have sex with inmates under the current leadership, said Waters, who is serving a seven-year sentence for a stabbing. She also has served time in Baylor for other crimes.

Virginia Davis, an advisory panel member who has been in and out of Baylor since 1997, said male guards are generally respectful and that sex with staff has diminished in recent years. “There were no cameras” years ago, she said, noting that two guards once had sex with prostitutes serving time and brought them drugs.

Mercedes Cherricks, 22, who said she has been held on prostitution and other charges for about two of the last four years, said she has not been propositioned but sometimes officers stare at her when she is showering or not fully dressed.

One recent night, she said, a guard stood outside the shower and watched her bathe. “He cracked open the door and looked and just wouldn’t go away.”

Other times, Cherricks said, she has been in her cell wearing just a nightgown or a T-shirt and guards have lingered at the window, watching her. “They aren’t supposed to do that,” she said.

Martelli and current union president Geoff Klopp said guards are often the prey of convicted criminals who covet sex with captors to use it as leverage for prison jobs, extra food or other benefits.

Martelli said male guards, many whom are “23 or 24 years old and have never had sex,” are vulnerable in a women’s prison. “You’ve got a bunch of girls walking around buck naked or in towels, laying in bed with another girl. There was a lot of that going on.”

Some prisoners, he said, “find a way to manipulate these guys,” such as offering to perform oral sex in return for cigarettes or a phone. I’m surprised more girls haven’t come up pregnant.”

Added Klopp: Women prisoners “have 24 hours a day to figure out a way to make it happen. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

National authorities on prison sexual abuse countered, however, that prisons need to have systems in place to prevent such behavior on both sides. Failure to do so creates institutional havoc or the conditions that can lead to inmate escapes, which recently occurred at a men’s prison in upstate New York.

“Delaware has a very very long and troubling history” with sex between guards and inmates, said Brenda V. Smith, director of the Project on Addressing Prison Rape at American University’s Washington College of Law.

Smith said Delaware was one of the last states that made it a crime for inmates to have sex with each other or prison employees. That law subjected inmates to possible prosecution, which made them less likely to file complaints against guards that abused them. The law was changed in 2010 so that only guards can be charged in a sexual liaison. However, an inmate can still be charged for forcing another inmate to have sex.

“Prisons can be a place of transformation for some people but you have to have the conditions for that to exist,” Smith said. “In the current situation, the head of security is the one who is perpetuating the abuse. That doesn’t approximate the conditions you would want to have in order for them to change their lives. It just reinforces trauma.”

Lawsuit opened door for male guards

Until 1992, Delaware didn’t let men work as guards in the lone women’s prison, except in limited situations. The policy was codified in a state law that prohibited “the placement or assignment of guards of one sex within housing units of inmates of the opposite sex” except in emergencies.

That changed after a discrimination lawsuit brought by the federal government on behalf of female guards who contended they were denied hiring or promotional opportunities available to men.

Under a consent order signed in 1992, just months after Baylor opened, Delaware agreed to open all correctional officer positions and assignments to all guards, regardless of gender or facility.

Today the state has 1,768 correctional officers – 1,439 men and 329 women.

Within a few years of Baylor’s opening, though, officials were reeling from two staff-inmate sex scandals that led to lawsuits and criminal charges.

The most dramatic occurred in 1996, when guard Rudolph Hawkins had sex with an inmate and she became pregnant. She had the baby and identified Hawkins as the father. DNA evidence supported her claim, leading to Hawkins’ firing and arrest.

The baby was put up for adoption because officials decided the inmate, a convicted armed robber who had an IQ of 80 and the mental capacity of a 14-year-old, could not care for the child.

During the civil trial, the woman told the jury: “I felt empty – like I didn’t have a soul. Like the walking dead.”

A jury awarded the woman $125,000 in damages. Hawkins pleaded no contest to having sex in a detention facility and was sentenced to two years of probation.

Also in 1996, another inmate sued, claiming guard Peter Davis entered her cell while she napped, put his finger over her mouth and had sex with her. He used a condom, but afterward tossed it on the bed. She put the evidence in a cigarette wrapper and gave it to authorities.

When she reported the incident, she was threatened with arrest herself and put in solitary confinement, her lawsuit said. She later tried to commit suicide in the prison by jumping off her tier. She broke an ankle.

The inmate won a modest award from Davis, who lost his job, but she never received the money and has since died, said her lawyer, Martin C. Meltzer.

Meltzer, who also represented Hawkins’ victim, questioned whether either woman would have been believed if one had not become pregnant and the other didn’t save the condom.

The lawyer said women in prison often feel powerless to resist guards’ advances. The guards, he said, control “a person’s entire life and ability to do things such as getting mail and seeing their children. There’s no such thing as consent in prison.”

Meltzer said he’s not surprised problems continued at Baylor after the ACLU settlement or that a top-level official has now been implicated.

“What happens is that once the spotlight is off of them,” Meltzer said, “it goes back to the old times.”

Just how many complaints have been made over the two-plus decades by women prisoners at Baylor and other facilities – and how many have been substantiated by investigators – could not be learned for this story. Individual cases were found by researching news clips and court files.

Corrections officials said it was too burdensome to research the individual allegations about sexual misconduct among thousands of other inmate complaints before 2010, when they began entering all complaints into their computer system.

Not including Way’s case, which remains an open investigation, there have been 22 accusations of staff-inmate sexual misconduct at Baylor since January 2010, including nine that didn’t involve actual sexual contact, corrections spokesman Jason Miller said.

Of those complaints, only one was substantiated and that officer, Sgt. Clinkscale, was arrested, Miller said. Nine were unsubstantiated, which means officials could not determine whether misconduct occurred. Twelve were unfounded, meaning officials concluded the violation did not occur.

The ACLU’s 2009 lawsuit against the state claimed guard Anthony Antonio burst into a woman’s cell after sending others in her tier to lunch, then forced her to give him oral sex. The lawsuit claimed sexual misconduct by guards was a widespread, chronic problem that was not often brought to the attention of police or prosecutors.

The ACLU charged that prison investigators had substantiated more than 25 cases of sex by guards with inmates since 2000, but usually resolved them by letting the violator resign. Several more sex complaints could not be substantiated, the lawsuit said, ending the prison’s investigation, even though officials knew that “99 percent of the time there may be an inappropriate relationship.”

Lawyers for the prison system argued that the lawsuit’s claims were untrue, but Antonio’s case was settled before the issue could be resolved.

Antonio told told police he wasn’t the only sex violator, noting that a fellow guard was supposedly “having sex with 4 or 5 inmates,” the lawsuit said. That guard resigned days later, officials acknowledged, though no charges were filed.

Also in 2009, a consultant hired by the state released a blistering report about sexual safety and security for inmates at Baylor – findings that became allegations in the Antonio lawsuit. Researchers for the Moss Group of Washington, D.C., were at Baylor interviewing staff and inmates just 10 days before Antonio committed his crime.

The Moss report found that inmate-inmate and staff-inmate sex was “prevalent” at Baylor, a problem exacerbated by dysfunctional management under then-warden Ryan, lack of training for all levels of staff, and no “clear leadership” on the issue.

Inmates were reluctant to report sex abuse, confused about how to complain and lacked confidence that “interventions will occur,” the report said. “There was broad agreement that inappropriate relationships existed between staff and inmates.”

During one focus group, “nearly every inmate present reported being aware of a staff-inmate sexual relationship going on at that time,” either witnessing it firsthand or hearing about it from staff or inmates.

Among inmates’ comments:

•“Guards have affairs with inmates.”

•“When we dress in our rooms staff ask us if they can see our bodies.”

•“A staff asked me to pull my shirt up. I did because I can get stuff.”

Inmates said “they are willing to respond positively to staff members’ sexual overtures to ‘get on their good side,’ ‘get what I need’ or to avoid retribution,” the report said.

Some misbehaving didn’t enter the sexual realm, but consisted of actions such as hugging inmates, bringing them food, granting extra phone calls, or providing cell phones and chargers. “Most staff agreed that their peers do violate professional and ethical boundaries,” the report said, calling such indiscretions “precursors to behaviors that result in sexual misconduct.”

While employees knew sexual relationships were forbidden and policies were clearly outlined in written documents, many were unaware of the six-year-old PREA law and didn’t know how to report indiscretions or even whether they should report them.

Employees agreed that “rumors persisted for a while before a formal report” was made. Some said they would not report, fearing backlash from colleagues who “will hang you out to dry.”

While signs in each housing unit provided a toll-free number for inmates who wanted to report physical or sexual abuse, when investigators visited, the phone system had been broken for a week.

Similar themes to those found in the Moss report resurfaced in the 2013 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that cast Baylor in a harsh light.

Allen J. Beck, a senior statistical adviser who oversaw the study, said 12 of the 165 Baylor inmates surveyed reported sexual contact with a staffer during the previous 12 months, with many reporting three to five separate encounters and one reporting at least 11. Ten of the 12 inmates reported they were forced or pressured into the sex act.

Most said they “didn’t report it to anyone,” Beck said.

During this period, former union chief Martelli said, Ryan and other prison leaders contacted him periodically about guards accused of sex with inmates.

“I took about seven of them out of there,” Martelli recalled. “We had DNA. We had rubbers. We had all kinds of stuff” as evidence. Ryan “covered up a lot of it, just wanted guys to resign.”

Ryan, who is retired, said Martelli’s recollections and similar ones from the ACLU lawsuit over Antonio’s crime are “absolutely untrue.” Ryan called the Moss report “seriously flawed.”

During his 14 years heading Baylor, Ryan said he kept abreast of all security violations. When an accusation against an employee for having sex or another inappropriate relationship with an inmate surfaced, he immediately referred the matter to the department’s Internal Affairs division, Ryan said.

“If there was enough information to be prosecuted, it would be referred for prosecution,” Ryan said. “If not, it resulted more often than not in their removal from the institution or termination.”

Martelli said he fought with prison leaders about putting so many young male guards at overcrowded Baylor, which houses about twice as many inmates as it was designed to hold. Martelli applauded the addition of cameras, but stressed, “The only way we can protect them girls is to have more staff.”

“That is an extremely difficult situation,” Ryan said.

Ryan said he doesn’t know Way but said the allegation against the security boss are shocking. “While one is always shocked by this stuff it has happened again and again,” Ryan said.

Before Way’s arrest, the last criminal case from Baylor occurred in 2012 when Sgt. Clinkscale abused an inmate who was on a late-night cleaning detail.

Clinkscale, a 12-year-veteran who normally worked at a men’s prison but was at Baylor on an overtime assignment because of short-staffing, offered the woman money for sex, according to court records.

Clinkscale summoned her to a staff restroom where he pulled her into a supply closet, began fondling her and had sex with her on the floor, police said. Afterward he ordered her to “clean this mess up,” records said. The woman collected DNA evidence using a brown paper towel and reported the incident.

Even though Clinkscale was charged with having sex with the inmate and police said he confessed to the felony, then-Attorney General Beau Biden’s office indicted him on two misdemeanors – official misconduct and sexual harassment. Nicole Byers, spokeswoman for Biden’s successor Matt Denn, said lesser charges were pursued because the victim wanted to “avoid testifying at trial.” Clinkscale pleaded guilty to both charges and was put on low-level probation.

Meanwhile, prosecutors have charged other guards with violating female prisoners at other Delaware facilities.

Among those cases:

•In August 2013, a Baylor prisoner awaiting a hearing at the New Castle County Courthouse performed oral sex on a Capitol Police senior security officer while she was in lockup. Vasilios Hantzopoulos struck up a conversation with the inmate after she used a telephone, then took her to a small room where fondling led to sex, court records said.

Hantzopoulos, then 47, admitted the sex act to police. He was later charged with that crime and with having sex with a second inmate in lockup that June, documents show. He pleaded guilty to sex in a detention facility and prosecutors dropped an official misconduct charge. A judge gave him probation.

•Roger Thompkins, a 22-year veteran who worked at the women’s Work Release Treatment Center next door to Baylor, coerced a woman into having sex with him three times in one day by saying he would be present at an upcoming disciplinary hearing and could send her back to prison.

He twice abused her in the laundry room – during which he was interrupted by a radio call – and took her to a storage room to have sex a third time. The inmate told him repeatedly she didn’t want to have sex with him, said police, who recovered DNA from a semen-stained paper towel found in the storage room.

Police leveled second-degree rape charges against Thompkins, who eventually pleaded guilty to having sex with her and was sentenced to six months behind bars.

•Daniel L. Mann, 49, was arrested for having sex three times with a 22-year-old prisoner at the Sussex County work-release center, police said. Mann was fired but the criminal case unraveled and the charges were dropped when the alleged victim could not be found. He also had his record expunged, his attorney said.

Mann, who is black, is now suing the state for racial discrimination in an attempt to get his job back, and suing the women and two witnesses for defamation. The woman, who spoke to The News Journal recently, said her allegations were true but she was using drugs and left Delaware when prosecutors needed her to testify against Mann. She is planning to defend herself in the defamation case.

She had been attracted to the older man, she said, and fell for his kind words and flirtations. Kissing and fondling in the duty office and her room led to two times where she performed oral sex, she said. Mann and other colleagues gave her and fellow prisoners extra snacks and didn’t penalize them for smoking, she said.

She regrets having sex with her captor, she said, adding that therapy has improved her self-esteem.

“I would never fall for it now,” she said, “no matter what compliment he threw at me.”

Klopp, the current union boss, said every episode of sexual misconduct is a harrowing reminder to guards that they must conduct themselves with professionalism during interactions with inmates.

“Our goal is zero,” Klopp stressed. “Our goal is to be perfect, to have it never happen again.”

Christopher Daley of Just Detention International, which aims to end sex abuse of prisoners, said both guards and administrators must be hyper-vigilant about prevention. Absent proper safeguards and procedures, along with a true zero-tolerance culture, the damage to an institution can be devastating, he said.

“There is a ton of coercive power that an individual can exert without proper supervision,” Daley said. “When that power is largely unchecked, that puts inmates in an incredibly vulnerable situation. Sexual misconduct also degrades the security in a prison. If they are able to abuse inmates, they are likely to bring in contraband. If you are sexually abusing someone you are not doing your job, which is security.”

In Delaware, Daley said, progress has been made “but there’s still a lot of work to do. I don’t think they would deny it.”

Beck said the revelation that a prison has a high rate of sexual misconduct, as the federal government found with Baylor, should be a wake-up call to Delaware prison leaders and politicians.

“It’s an institutional culture,” Beck said. “Facilities that have problems like this might have problems related to security.”

Commissioner Coupe, who took over in 2013 after 28 years with the state police, the last three as superintendent, said he and other prison leaders are embarrassed by Way’s arrest and all incidents of sexual misconduct. Officials are reviewing security procedures at Baylor and will make necessary changes, he said.

While leading the tour through Baylor, Coupe was asked why the window leading to the four rooms in Way’s office was semi-opaque, obscuring the view inside. Caple said she had a tinted window installed because a former female secretary was pestered with advances by inmates, some of whom would kiss the window. That secretary has since resigned and the job remains unfilled, she said.

Coupe began scrutinizing the window, and saw that thin translucent tape – not a special window – had been installed, which he began pulling back by hand. He ordered the warden to have someone finish the job.

“We are committed to ending sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and sexual violence in our correctional system,” Coupe later said. “We will continue to do all we can to make that a reality. It’s about creating a culture of accountability where inmates feel comfortable that if they report something up the chain, it’s going to be investigated.”

Contact senior investigative reporter Cris Barrish at (302) 324-2785, cbarrish@delawareonline.com, on Facebook or Twitter @crisbarrish.

Baylor women’s Correctional Institution

• Facility near New Castle opened Dec. 29, 1991

• Only prison for women in Delaware

• Named after Delores J. Baylor, the first black female warden in the state

• Houses pre-trial and sentenced women in minimum, medium and maximum security levels