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| Female Inmate Recounts Ordeal In N.Y. Jail |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/26/2002 |
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When a 23-year-old woman was jailed on Ecstasy smuggling charges recently, she thought her life could sink no further. Then she encountered a jail officer who she says cornered her inside her cell and raped her. Afterward, she says, he added to the humiliation by making her clean his office. A federal indictment charges Lt. Randy Denjen, 38, with sexually assaulting the inmate and then lying to investigators. But the woman's lawyer says the violation went further. In court papers, attorney Jan Rostal says there was a 'prison code of silence' in which jail personnel initially ignored the assault and later harassed the woman and denied her psychiatric care. The officer's attorney, Joseph Gentile, declined to discuss the case. The woman, a British subject, also declined to be interviewed. Her lawyer requested her client's identity not be revealed due to the nature of the case. Last year, a drug trafficker offered her $3,000 to smuggle Ecstasy on a flight from London to New York. Customs agents caught her at Kennedy International Airport carrying a false-bottom suitcase stuffed with pills, and she later admitted in a guilty plea that the pills were Ecstasy. The woman was awaiting sentencing Nov. 25 when an officer accused her of not following an order. She was thrown into an isolation area of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where Denjen was working a midnight to 8 a.m. shift. Shortly after midnight, Denjen awakened the woman and made sexual advances, according to her account. She said she resisted but he began kissing her and then raped her. The woman said Denjen was zipping up his pants when a female guard paused in front of the cell, then walked away without saying a word. Denjen allegedly told her the officer 'was only an officer and would not report what she had seen.' Confronted by FBI agents, the female guard confirmed that she saw the woman's jumpsuit down and Denjen fumbling with his pants, an FBI report said. She also saw the woman inside the lieutenant's office holding a broom. The FBI said Denjen admitted entering the woman's cell and talking about sex, but he denied touching her. The inmate was examined by a doctor, given a 'morning-after pill' and sent to a different detention center, but there, the woman said, she was subjected to frequent searches for no reason. 'I've heard about you,' one officer allegedly told her. Weeks passed before she was given proper psychiatric care, leaving her suicidal, Rostal said. Rostal argued that leaving her client - now considered a 'snitch' - behind bars would subject her to further abuse. She cited numerous studies finding 'extensive and horrifying' treatment of female inmates in the corrections system. After Denjen was indicted in January, the woman was released on bail. A Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman, Traci Billingsley, said Denjen was suspended without pay pending an internal investigation. |
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