A cardinal rule at any jail is that staffers are supposed to have each other’s backs.
But an employee of the New Orleans jail’s medical provider says that last July, she was surrounded and trapped by inmates who then masturbated around her while the deputy assigned to protect her watched television instead.
The Sheriff’s Office and private healthcare provider Wellpath made matters worse by blaming the victim and placing her on unpaid leave, she says.
The incident has already spawned criminal charges against four inmates, and on Monday, the woman filed a federal lawsuit against Wellpath, Sheriff Marlin Gusman and the deputy. It’s the latest court filing to call into question how seriously the Sheriff’s Office takes sexual harassment and how well it controls its own facility.
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In the lawsuit, the woman says she was hired by Wellpath in 2019 to work in the jail. Due to staff shortages, her duties quickly grew to include drawing blood from inmates on jail pods, according to the suit. The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate isn’t naming the woman due to the nature of her claims.
Deputies are supposed to protect medical workers when they venture onto the pods. The woman says that on July 7 of last year, a deputy identified in the lawsuit as Paul Grillier instructed her to draw blood from an inmate inside a pod visitation booth, even though that was against Sheriff’s Office policy.
“I got you, I’ll watch you,” the deputy reportedly told the woman.
Instead, the woman says that the deputy was nowhere to be seen when inmates surrounded her with their pants down and began masturbating. She had to push through the inmates in an effort to escape, and then push through them again to retrieve a medical cart, according to her account.
She called out to the deputy for help and spotted him watching television, she says. But the deputy did nothing as one inmate grabbed her on the buttocks and others touched her body and pulled on her clothes, according to her lawsuit.
Only by reaching the jail pod door and pressing a call button to alert central security was she able to exit to safety. A jail sergeant told her that surveillance video of the incident made it clear that the deputy never…
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