Ex-guard won’t face prosecution

DA’S office had October deadline to re-present felony sexual abuse case

A former Albany County jail guard who was accused of sexually abusing two female inmates will not face prosecution.

The charges against Brandon Austin were dismissed in April after his defense attorney discovered a victim’s family member had served on the grand jury that indicted him. The Albany County District Attorney’s Office then had six months to re-present their evidence to a new grand jury but that deadline passed in October and Austin resigned in December.

“We concluded that we could no longer prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cecilia Walsh, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said Wednesday. “Based on this, and given that the defendant is no longer employed by the Albany County Correctional Facility, we declined to move forward.”

Austin was indicted in August 2017 on two counts of felony sexual abuse, two counts of misdemeanor sexual abuse and one count of misdemeanor attempted criminal sexual act for allegedly forcing two female inmates to have sexual contact with him.

Austin’s defense attorney, James Knox, said Friday that the grand jury was improperly impaneled by the district attorney’s office but “it wasn’t done intentionally.” Knox said he uncovered the juror’s relation to a victim while preparing for trial and filed a motion with the judge to dismiss.

The prosecutor — Assistant District Attorney Shannon Sarfoh, who is the bureau chief of the office’s Special Victims Unit — ultimately decided not to re-present the case to a grand jury.

Generally, sexual crimes can be some of the most difficult for prosecutors to secure convictions on — especially given that survivors are asked to testify before both a grand jury and a trial jury, which can be traumatizing.

Out of every 1,000 instances of rape, only 13 cases get referred to a

prosecutor and only seven cases lead to a felony conviction, according to FBI statistics compiled by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.

“When there are allegations like that, we take them seriously,” Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said.

Sixty percent of all sexual violence against inmates is perpetrated by jail or prison staff, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics compiled by RAINN.

In 2017, the sheriff said Austin’s arrest was the result of a monthlong sheriff’s office investigation into the separate incidents.

Austin was moved from the women’s unit, which he had requested to cover, and reassigned to a male unit while officials conducted the investigation, Apple said.

The alleged abuse occurred between April 1 and June 17, 2017, for one victim and between June 16 and 17, 2017, for the other. Austin had been a guard since 2014, and the correction officers union negotiated his resignation, according to Apple.

Council 82 of the New York State Law Enforcement Officers Union did not return a call for comment.

Austin’s arrest was the second time in 2017 a correction officer was accused of inappropriate behavior while on the job.

In late March, Correction Officer Thomas W. Bellow, 42, of Green Island, was charged with forcibly touching another employee at the jail. He was suspended from the job, which he’d held since 2013.

Bellow was convicted of misdemeanor forcible touching by a jury in Colonie Town Court on March 5, 2018, and sentenced to six years of probation. His license to carry a weapon was also suspended. Apple said Friday that Bellow is no longer employed by the sheriff’s office.

More recently, a federal lawsuit was filed in Manhattan claiming that young inmates were transferred from Rikers Island in New York City to the Albany County jail, where they were beaten, shot with a Taser and sexually assaulted by a dozen local jail guards.

The New York Times reported the young men were thrown in solitary confinement for long stretches following the alleged assaults.

Apple has previously declined to comment on the lawsuit, but when asked about it on Friday, he said, incredulously: “It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that is going on in the county jail.”

He said cameras have been installed inside the facility and officers are properly trained but declined to discuss the case further, citing ongoing litigation.