Former federal jail guard convicted of raping inmate

A former guard at a federal detention center is facing a sentence of life in prison after being convicted of repeatedly raping a female inmate, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said.

Carlos Richard Martinez, a lieutenant at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn at the time of his arrest, was convicted Friday of charges including sexual abuse and violating the civil rights of the inmate, an immigrant woman who spoke little English.

A date for his sentencing has not been scheduled.

Martinez had been arrested in May. Prosecutors had said he had assaulted the woman over a five-month period from December 2015 to April 2016.

In her testimony during the two-week trial, the woman said that she had been assaulted while she was working as a cleaner inside MDC, including Martinez’s office. She said he would watch security footage during the assaults to make sure no one would discover them.

Two other guards were also arrested at the same time Martinez was. One was another lieutenant, who was accused of sexually abusing five women over three years; he is scheduled to go on trial next month and faces a sentence of up to life in prison if convicted. The third was a prison guard who was arrested on sexual abuse charges related to alleged attacks on female inmates between May and June of 2016. He has pleaded guilty but has not yet been sentenced.