Jail inmate accuses deputy of rape
LAWSUIT
A federal lawsuit filed in Columbus alleges that a central Ohio jail inmate was raped and sexually abused by a deputy in 2015 amid a jail culture that fostered the harassment.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday in U.S. District Court, names two Fairfield County deputies, one of whom is accused of the rape. It also lists Fairfield County Sheriff David Phalen and the Board of Commissioners as defendants for allegedly failing to properly supervise and discipline the deputies. It claims civil rights violations and infliction of emotional injuries and seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
The plaintiff’s name is withheld from the lawsuit. The suit says she was a Fairfield County teenage high-school student being held in the county jail on drug-related charges when she was raped on Nov. 27, 2015.
The woman’s attorney, Alphonse Gerhardstein of Cincinnati, said she had done “everything right” by complaining to medical staff at the jail, her probation officer, the county prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s office. The suit says she was retaliated against after she landed in the jail again in 2017 after having filed the complaints.
“She was not believed, and she was basically harmed all over again just by having reported the rape,” Gerhardstein said. “She wants the case ... to send a message to all those who work in lockups that they need to respect all inmates and not abuse women and others ...”
Sheriff Phalen said the case has been looked into by his office and outside agencies. He declined to comment further due to the pending litigation.
The suit says that Deputy Jared Garren had made unwelcome sexual statements and engaged in unwanted touching of the inmate throughout various incarcerations in 2015. On the day of the alleged rape, the suit says, she was in an observation cell when she had asked for ice to treat an injured hand, and Garren refused to supply it until she showed him her breasts.
Because of the injury, there was blood on the inmate’s uniform and she asked to change into a clean uniform, the suit says. It further states that Garren escorted her into an off-camera restroom and closet, even though it was against jail policy for an individual male deputy to escort a female inmate to the restroom without engaging a restroom “call box.”
The suit says that Garren made sexual advances and frightened the teen into “submitting” to him. It says the two were alone off camera for about four minutes.
The suit also accuses Deputy Matthew Greathouse, who was assigned to work alongside Garren in the observation cell, of not protecting the inmate, engaging the call box or reporting the policy breach.
Garren was disciplined by Phalen with written reprimands for the observation-cell incident and for entering the restroom alone with the inmate, according to the lawsuit.
Messages left for Garren and Greathouse through the sheriff’s office on Monday were not returned.
CHICAGO — Barbara Blaine, the founder and former president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has died. She was 61.
The organization known as SNAP announced on its Facebook page that Blaine died Sunday in Utah following a recent cardiac event.
Blaine founded SNAP in 1988, years after she was abused as an eighth-grader by a Toledo priest who taught at the Catholic school she attended, according to the organization’s website. Her pleas for help to Toledo’s bishop were ignored. The first SNAP meeting of victims was held at a Chicago hotel.
In a statement, SNAP managing director Barbara Dorris praised Blaine’s work with victims of clergy sexual abuse.
“Few people have done more to protect kids and help victims than Barbara Blaine,” Dorris said. “Her contributions to a safer society would be hard to overstate.”