CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cuyahoga County Jail Warden Eric Ivey, who has come under intense scrutiny in recent months after a scathing U.S. Marshals report detailed inhumane conditions inside the jail, was demoted Monday after the county’s inspector general found he violated the county’s nepotism policy.

Ivey, a 27-year veteran corrections officer who was an associate warden for seven years before becoming the warden in 2017, was demoted back to associate warden, Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan said.

Madigan did not know if anyone has been appointed acting warden.

Cuyahoga County Sheriff Clifford Pinkney said Wednesday during an interview with cleveland.com reporters and editors that Ivey faces a second human resources investigation in connection with accusations made in the U.S. Marshals report. A decision has not been made on discipline in the second investigation.

Cuyahoga County officials have so far refused to release documents about the two probes.

Ivey’s demotion stems from a nepotism complaint investigated by the county’s inspector general, Mark Griffin, who found Ivey supervised his wife’s supervisor for two months in 2018. Ivey’s wife, Kathy, is a corporal who works in the jail’s visitation area.

In the report, the inspector general noted the nepotism investigation was a separate prong from a larger investigation into the county’s jails, where eight inmates died in 2018.

Ivey came to supervise his wife’s boss after Sgt. Phillip Christopher was promoted to associate warden.

The report does not name Christopher, but he was one of three associate wardens hired on Sept. 4 and was the sergeant in charge of visitation at the time.

Christopher was Kathy Ivey’s direct supervisor. As a sergeant, he reported directly to then-jail director Ken Mills, who was one level above the warden.

When Christopher was promoted to associate warden, he came under Eric Ivey’s direct supervision. Christopher continued to supervise his old departments, including visitation, where Kathy Ivey worked, until a new sergeant was promoted Nov. 7 to fill Christopher’s old job.

Eric Ivey signed off on Christopher’s mid-year evaluation during that timeframe, the report says. He told the inspector general’s office on Sept. 28 that Christopher reported directly to Mills; however, Christopher told the inspector general that he reported to Eric Ivey.

Eric Ivey told the inspector general’s office that he never exerted authority over his wife or anyone in her chain-of-command, the report says.

The report also says Eric Ivey was removed from his wife’s chain-of-command after a 2012 inspector general’s report. The report said it was an “inadvertent” ethics violation and that Kathy Ivey was reassigned.

Eric Ivey, who made $96,907 per year as the warden, also faces punishment in the second investigation stemming from the marshals report.

That report says Ivey personally ordered guards to deprive inmates of food as punishment; that he failed to make required weekly checks of inmates held in isolation or segregation; and that he failed to adequately oversee the department’s Special Response Team, which threatened and assaulted inmates.

The marshals’ report found systemic issues with the way the jail is run and touched on nearly every aspect of the jail that was under Ivey’s control. Those issues included depriving inmates of medical and mental healthcare, locking down inmates in their cells for 27 hours straight and ordering inmates into be held in isolation or segregation from the normal population for minor infractions.

Eric Ivey also violated inmates’ 5th and 14th Amendment Constitutional Rights by never allowing them to have a full disciplinary hearing if they were accused of wrongdoing while in lockup.

County officials said Wednesday that inmates now have full hearings, and appeals are sent to an associate warden for review.