Even though new law doesn't apply, judge maintains sex assault count
TAMMATHA R. CONERLY Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Saturday, March 10, 2007 12:00 am
EVANSTON - A new state law making it a crime for a jail employee to have sex with an inmate doesn't apply to the case of former Uinta County detention officer Todd Hoover.
That's because alleged sexual encounters between Hoover and two Uinta County jail inmates took place last year, before the Legislature and governor adopted the new law.
Nonetheless, Uinta County Circuit Judge Michael Greer has ordered Hoover to stand trial on a charge of second-degree sexual assault, along with seven counts of delivery of a controlled substance.
Hoover was fired from his job as a detention officer as a result of allegations that he gave the two female inmates a prescription painkiller and had sexual contact with them several times in December and early January.
During a preliminary hearing last week, Detective Mark Furman of the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Department testified that the two women and Hoover all agreed that the sexual contact was consensual. However, while one of the women said she considered Hoover a friend and it was her who initiated the contact, the other said Hoover's actions weren't right because of the position he was in and the authority he had over her in the jail, Furman said.
Following Furman's testimony, Greer dismissed a third-degree sexual assault charge against Hoover in connection with the alleged sexual contact between Hoover and the first woman. But the judge expressed doubt that the contact would have occurred outside the jail.
"The court's struggling with the fact that Mr. Hoover's authority in the jail allowed him to control the activities of these women," Greer said. "If he hadn't been in the position he was in, these incidents would not have happened."
The new state law establishes a crime for sex offenses committed by corrections staff against inmates and provides that consent by the victim is not a defense. The Legislature last month approved the bill after a Wheatland jury last March acquitted a guard who'd been charged with second-degree sexual assault for an alleged sexual encounter with an inmate. The defendant in the case said the sex was consensual and therefore not against the law.
Because the alleged sexual contact between Hoover and the two inmates in Uinta County happened last year, however, the new law does not apply.
Public defender Gregory Blenkinsop, who represented Hoover during his preliminary hearing, noted the Wheatland jury's verdict in arguing for dismissal of both sexual assault charges.
"This can't be bound over to District Court," Blenkinsop said. "There was a case similar to this in Wheatland where the women involved said their will was overcome, and you don't even have that."
But Greer only dismissed one of the sexual assault charges.
The charges of delivery of a controlled substance stem from allegations that Hoover gave the women Percocet, a prescription painkiller. Hoover told Furman the pills were part of a prescription he had been given for back pain, the detective testified.
Hoover will next be arraigned in Uinta County District Court, where he will have the opportunity to enter pleas to the charges.
Sweetwater County investigators handled the inquiry at the request of Uinta County Sheriff Lou Napoli. Lincoln County Attorney Eric Phillips was appointed special prosecutor in the case.