LUCEDALE, Miss. (AP) - A former jailer in a south Mississippi county has admitted to illegal sex with a female inmate, and a lawyer for the deceased woman’s children is seeking monetary damages.
Warren Avery pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of attempted unlawful sexual activity and two counts of unlawful sexual activity, The Sun Herald reported.
Circuit Judge Dale Harkey sentenced the 60-year-old Avery to two years in prison without possibility of parole, fined him $3,000 and ordered him to register as a sex offender. A charge of unlawful sexual activity is often brought against a jail guard accused of having sex with a prisoner - with or without their consent.
Two children of a deceased woman who accused Avery of rape in 2016 are suing the city of Lucedale, George County and Avery. Daniel Waide, a lawyer for the minor children, said he had hoped for stiffer criminal penalties for Avery.
“I would like to have seen the district attorney do something more to punish him, but some justice is better than no justice,” Waide said.
Prosecutors declined to comment.
Waide said the mother, who died in a car accident in Mobile, Alabama, in 2018 before the case made it to court, was jailed in George County for failing to pay $1,480 in traffic fines. The Associated Press generally does not name people who said they are victims of sexual assault.
“You can’t just lock someone up because she can’t pay her fines,” Waide said. “You know, basically, it’s a crime to be poor in some counties in Mississippi.”
George County Sheriff Keith Havard fired Avery after the allegations surfaced, but before then, Waide said Avery had easy access to women behind bars.
The suit alleges in one incident, Avery ordered female detainees to strip naked and doused them in disinfectant spray for the sole purpose of “humiliating and embarrassing.”
After the victim reported being raped to jail officers, the lawsuit says, she was placed in solitary confinement. Because of jail overcrowding, the victim was released from solitary confinement and the jail two weeks after Avery’s sexual assault. A psychiatric evaluation found she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after the jail stay.
In 2017, the woman was arrested again and jailed for failure to pay old fines. During that jail stay, Waide alleges the woman’s right eye was permanently damaged after another jail guard fired a pressurized gun full of pepper spray. The lawsuit alleges that was excessive force.
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Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com
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