EAST LYME, CT - The state Department of Correction is investigating claims that at least eight employees of the Janet S. York Correctional Institution have had inappropriate sexual relations with inmates.

Sex between inmates and correction officers at York is so rampant, one inmate said, that she has had sexual relationships with four male officers and a female officer.

“There's a lot of sneaking around,” she said. “It's a joke, man.”

Edward Ramsey, a spokesman for the DOC, said there have been two reports of sexual assault in addition to claims of inappropriate touching, undue familiarity and inappropriate sexual contact at York, the state's only prison for women. He said the claims against the eight employees are being investigated internally and have been forwarded to state police for possible criminal charges.

None of those investigated has been charged with a crime, according to the department, but that does not count those who were charged after resigning their positions, including a former correctional officer arrested in early April.

George W. Smith, the former correctional officer, is awaiting trial on charges of second- and fourth-degree sexual assault.

An arrest-warrant affidavit says that Smith, 49, of 170 Flanders Road, Unit R3, groped a 19-year-old inmate in a closet and asked her to have sex while he was working on the overnight shift. The warrant says that the inmate refused to have sex with him. He was arrested days after resigning.

The DOC would not say whether Smith was one of the eight currently under investigation.

According to state statutes, sex with an inmate, even if consensual, is second-degree sexual assault, comparable to statutory rape.

The inmate who claims to have had sexual relationships with five employees approached the administration around the same time that Smith, with whom she had not had a relationship, was charged.

The inmate, 27, said she had relationships with five security personnel over a four-year period. At least two of them, Lt. Brian White and Officer Jamie Donovan, have been transferred.

The inmate said that the other three have either been transferred or placed in positions where they have no contact with inmates. The DOC would not confirm the inmate's claims. The department also did not provide names of those transferred or under investigation.

White, Ramsey said, is working on a temporary assignment at the J.B. Gates Correctional Institution, and Donovan is on administrative leave.

It is The Day's policy not to identify sexual-assault victims.

The inmate, who is more than halfway through an eight-year sentence for conspiracy, said in a recent interview that most of the employees at York take their mission seriously, but that sexual misconduct occurs often.

Although she refused to name the employees she had relationships with, her relationships with White and Donovan were confirmed by outside sources. She said four of the employees are married and several have children.

She said such relationships often start with innocent joking that turns to flirting.

Some of her relationships, she said, involved sex, but others involved only touching or sexually explicit conversations. She and officers often made plans for after she is released in two years, she said.

“We were emotionally involved and physically involved,” she said.

She said she often stayed up from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. with one officer.

Jealousy, she said, added to the stress of prison. She said she was aware that some of the employees she had relationships with also had relationships with other inmates. The employees would become jealous of one another when she would flirt with one in front of another, she said.

Inmates often became upset when an officer who had been having a relationship with one woman was found with another.

“You have women in this place that are very vulnerable,” she said.

In a statement, Ramsey wrote that the department has “zero tolerance” for inappropriate behavior and trains all staff how to treat inmates.

Recently, Ramsey said, York Warden Lori Ricks hosted a 31/2-day training session that covered sexual misconduct. Staff from the National Institute of Corrections, a training organization, also addressed staff about the recent allegations, he said.

The inmate said that reactions within the facility to her allegations have been mixed. While many inmates are angry that she “screwed it up for the rest of us,” she said, many employees expressed relief that they would no longer have to keep a secret of which they disapproved.

The inmate said she came forward as part of her rehabilitation. Since entering the prison in 1998 she has earned her general equivalency diploma and graduated from the hospice program, which teaches inmates how to counsel the chronically ill. She now volunteers as a grief guide, offering comfort to inmates who have lost relatives on the outside.

“Before I go home, I want to leave all this baggage behind,” she said. “When it weighs down on you, you know it's not right. I came here to be reformed. I've been going through hell.”