By Jamie Satterfield
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. - A shoplifter who said she was raped by a gang of violent Sevier County Jail inmates has fi led a $13.5 million federal lawsuit against not only her alleged attackers but also the guards who were supposed to protect her.
Attorney James A.H. Bell has filed on behalf of the alleged rape victim lawsuits in both federal and state court against the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department and five jail inmates accused of savaging a fellow inmate in December 2006.
Those inmates - Kandi Lee Arwood, Michelle Mae Gunter, Megan Ashley Hudson, Krystal Marie Kawalski and Vandy Noel Morin - also face criminal charges in connection with the alleged attack.
A Jan. 30 trial in Sevier County Circuit Court has been set for the inmates.
Bell insists overcrowding at the jail caused his client, jailed for failing to pay court costs on a shoplifting conviction, to be tossed into a cell with inmates facing far more serious charges, including robbery.
According to both Bell’s lawsuit and warrants filed against the inmates by Sevier County Sheriff’s Department Detective Matthew Cubberley, the shoplifter’s fi ve fellow inmates conspired to attack the woman because they believed she was hiding drugs inside her body.
She wasn’t.
Arwood, Gunter, Hudson, Kawalski and Morin allegedly grabbed the shoplifter and forced her onto the floor of the jail cell.
To quiet her screams for help, the alleged attackers forced a rag into her mouth, court documents state. With fellow inmates holding “down each of (her) limbs,” a fifth suspect “maliciously and continuously groped within (her) vaginal cavity for a period of approximately 15 minutes,” Bell wrote.
“During the rape, (she) repeatedly begged for help,” Bell wrote. “However, no one, including Sevier County sheriff deputies and employees responded or otherwise intervened ... at a time when (they) knew or should have known of the rape.”
Both lawsuits allege that the woman’s rights were violated.
“The act of rape is not a proscribed punishment for failure to pay court costs,” Bell wrote.
According to the lawsuits, there was a blind spot in the jail’s security system that veteran inmates and sheriff’s department employees knew existed.
The alleged inmate rapists took advantage of that surveillance blind spot to rape the shoplifter, Bell wrote.
“The (alleged victim’s) cell was separated from jail employees by sight and sound, lacked any type of reasonably suffi cientvideo and/or surveillance equipment and lacked adequate security to protect (the alleged victim),” the lawsuit states.
Bell contended that the Sevier County Jail has been bursting at the inmate population seams since 2001. Because of that, the attorney alleged, jailers were forced to pit together in the same cell both nonviolent offenders like Bell’s client and alleged baddies with mean streaks.
Late Sevier County Sheriff Bruce Montgomery before his death conceded the role of overcrowding in the alleged attack.
Bell essentially is demanding a trial move in both the state and federal lawsuits, arguing that no Sevier County taxpayer could fairly decide a case that could take money out of his or her own pockets.
Copyright 2007 Knoxville News-Sentinel