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A former Washington County jail officer threatened to make life "hell" for inmates if they did not have sex with him, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Steven Garrett Thayer, 29, was sentenced to 90 days in jail earlier this month after he pleaded guilty to custodial sexual misconduct with three female inmates at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane.
But those inmates claim Thayer's offenses went further, and allege he threatened them with punishment if they did not perform assorted sexual favors while they were lodged in the jail in 2013.
Two of the inmates, in the jail amid drug court cases, allege that Thayer told each of them separately that he had the power to make their lives "hell" and threatened "correctional retaliation" if they refused his sexual advances. He said he could lengthen or shorten their stays in jail depending on their cooperation, the lawsuit claims.
One of those inmates claims that Thayer approached her and her cellmate, asking them to perform sex acts on each other and write sexually explicit letters to him.
The cellmate also alleges that Thayer coerced her into sex acts separately. The lawsuit further claims that after a judge ordered her release, Thayer did not comply but held her in jail "without legal authority or justification, to attempt to continue to sexually exploit and abuse [her]."
The lawsuit accuses Thayer of violating the women's constitutional rights by subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment and discriminating against them on the basis of gender.
"Thayer's threats and coercion were malicious and sadistic, and served no penological purpose, but merely the satisfaction of his own sexual and emotional gratification," the lawsuit states.
The suit also claims a horseshoe-shaped passage in the jail allowed guards to have contact with inmates without being visible to other guards or security cameras — an area guards allegedly made use of in 2005, when two other jail officers had sex with inmates and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor custodial sexual relations.
"Despite actual notice and knowledge of the dangerousness of the 'horseshoe' design, [Sheriff Cory] Pulsipher and Washington County failed to take any sufficient action to correct these deficiencies."
Pulsipher and the county are both named as defendants in the lawsuit. County attorneys could not be reached for comment.