Investigation found no evidence of rape at Warren County Jail

Woman filed a lawsuit alleging a rape and cover-up by jail in 2013.

A criminal investigation into allegations that a female inmate was raped at the Warren County jail was closed in 2013 after investigators concluded there was no evidence a sexual assault had occurred, according to a copy of the investigation obtained by the I-Team.

The woman sued the county in federal court last month claiming she was raped, the alleged assault was poorly investigated and that jailers refused to provide her with medication and medical care while she was behind bars.

Records show the Warren County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into the incident on May 18, 2013, after the inmate’s attorney said sperm found in the inmate’s urine indicated she was raped at the jail.

Investigators confirmed that a lab report showed sperm was in the inmate’s urine, records say. But when officers called Atrium Medical Center, where the test was conducted, the lab worker said the report meant nothing and wasn’t admissible in court.

“She said it may have not been sperm but a bacteria or the instrument used to do the test was contaminated,” the report says.

Also, the test was taken on May 10 of that year, according to the report, so the sample was destroyed by the time the investigation began. The samples are kept seven days, the report says.

The report says the inmate refused to undergo a rape kit test at the time and never claimed to be sexually assaulted. It says she was on suicide watch the entire time she was in the jail.

The report includes the suicide watch log, where she was checked on every five to 10 minutes. The log from May 10 through May 14 notes her acting erratically, stripping naked and talking to herself. It says more than once she refused medication.

The inmate was incarcerated May 3 after turning herself in on a four-year-old warrant for deception to obtain drugs. Her lawsuit alleges that corrections officers refused to provide her medication, which led her mental and physical condition to decline, leaving her vulnerable to sexual assault and initially unable to recall details of the alleged attack.

She was released on July 11, 2013. The criminal investigation was reopened the next month after she told an attorney she was sexually assaulted.

“She said because of her medical condition she could not remember what exactly had occurred,” the report says. “She could not remember how she was sexually assaulted but she knows she was. She said it happened on several occasions but could not give any more details.”

The woman spent part of her sentence at Summit Behavioral Healthcare Center in Cincinnati. In the woman’s discharge papers from Summit, which were obtained by the investigator, a doctor wrote that the urine lab report “raised the question of whether or not she had been abused physically and/or sexually at the jail,” according to the investigator’s report.

The investigation was closed in September. The investigator wrote that he had “no evidence” she was sexually assaulted at the jail and that the attorney wasn’t returning his calls.

The inmate’s lawsuit alleges the investigation, summed up in three typed pages, didn’t try hard enough to obtain forensic evidence.

The I-Team has reached out to the attorney for a response.

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