Former jail employee accused of having sex with inmates

A civilian employee of the Franklin County sheriff’s office resigned last month after he was accused of having sex with inmates.

Kyle A. Kelley, 22, of Gahanna, resigned in June after working for two years with the sheriff’s office. He had worked in the Jackson Pike jail facility.

“We have (sexual crime) victims involved,” Chief Deputy David Conley said Monday, explaining why his office wouldn’t release to The Dispatch documentation of the allegations against Kelley.

“The case has been given to the prosecutor’s office” because it involved sexual contact with inmates, he said.

County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said on Monday that Kelley is accused of having sex with inmates “while inside the jail facility.”

Kelley wrote a four-sentence resignation letter dated June 30 to Sheriff Dallas Baldwin. It was “immediately” accepted, Kelley’s personnel file showed. Kelley’s letter noted what “a pleasure” it was working at the correction center. Kelley didn’t respond to a Monday email seeking comment; The Dispatch had no telephone number for him.

Kelley, a 2013 graduate of Whetstone High School, was hired June 15, 2015, by the sheriff’s office as a corrections services coordinator. In that job, Kelley monitored inmates, kept records of visits, checked mail and packages for inmates, and coordinated laundry operations. His hourly wage was $16.78.

Kelley received good job reviews in the two years he worked there. He was commended for finding drugs sewn into waistbands of five pairs of underwear dropped off for an inmate. As a result of Kelley’s actions, the person who dropped the underwear off was arrested and prosecuted. Kelley also was commended for finding drugs in a magazine brought in for an inmate.

He had one documented disciplinary action in his personnel file: He was given written notice of an oral reprimand for improperly using sick time after a relative of his girlfriend died.

Because Kelley worked at the jail and had some control over inmates, any criminal charge against him could be more severe. A potential charge that O’Brien discussed is sexual battery, a third-degree felony that carries a maximum prison sentence of three years.

A grand jury will determine whether Kelley will face criminal charges.

Because the sheriff “asked us to work expeditiously on this, it should be within a week,” O’Brien said.