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Florida and Oregon Prison Employees Face Sex Charges

Loaded on July 15, 2009 published in Prison Legal News July, 2009, page 47

Filed under: Sexual Assault, Staff-Prisoner Assault, Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic. Locations: Florida, Oregon.

On November 7, 2008, prison guard Geno Lewis Hawkins was arrested by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) and the Inspector General’s Office of the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) on a charge of sexual battery.

In August 2008, FDLE and FDOC initiated a joint investigation of Hawkins, a 43-year-old Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) employee, for having a sexual relationship with a female prisoner at the Gadsden Correctional Facility.

Hawkins was charged with one count of sexual battery and booked into the Leon County Jail without bond. His prose-cution is still pending.

In an unrelated case, Oregon Department of Corrections groundskeeper Paul William Golden, 37, was arrested on January 16, 2009 for sexually abusing six female prisoners at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility.

Golden worked as a landscaper at Coffee Creek from October 2004 until his April 2008 resignation, and supervised prisoner work crews. He was arraigned on 31 counts of custodial sexual misconduct, rape and supplying contraband, ac-cording to Lt. Gregg Hastings, a spokesman for the Oregon State Police. Golden has pleaded not guilty; his trial is set for June 23, 2009.

These are only two of numerous cases involving sexual abuse by prison staff nationwide, which occur with disturbing frequency. [See: PLN, May 2009, p.1].

Sources: FDLE Media Release, The Oregonian