Female correctional officer arrested in inmate sexual assault case
A female correctional officer is being investigated by the Honolulu Police Department and the Department of Public Safety for multiple sex assaults on an inmate at the Women’s Community Correctional Facility last October.
The 36-year-old female guard, who has been with the Department of Public Safety since 2004, was arrested Monday on five counts of second-degree sex assault and one count of third-degree sex assault.
The alleged attacks were reported by a 31-year-old female inmate who said the assaults occurred between Oct. 2-25 at the Kailua woman’s prison.
The female guard was released about an hour after she turned herself in to authorities at the main police station on South Beretania Street on Monday. No charges have been filed although the investigation is ongoing.
The suspect was temporarily assigned to the Halawa Correctional Facility in November, prison officials reported.
“An internal administrative investigation is being conducted, as is standard procedure whenever there are allegations of abuse reported,” said Toni Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the prison facilities.
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Last week, a 38-year-old male prison guard was arrested for multiple incidents of alleged sexual assault on three inmates at the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua over a two-year period.
The police said the female victims, ages 30, 31 and 34, were allegedly assaulted from March 2013 to November 2015.
The male prison guard, who was hired in October 2007, was temporarily transferred in January 2016 from the Kailua women’s facility to the minimum-security Waiawa Correctional Facility.
No other details were released by the police or the Department of Public Safety in either case.