By Tom Beyerlein
Dayton Daily News (Ohio)
DAYTON, Ohio — State prison officials have disciplined a guard at Lebanon Correctional Institution for failing to maintain proper rounds on the night an inmate committed suicide, then falsifying records to make it appear she acted properly.
Warden Ernie Moore ordered the firing of Corrections Officer Denna Watts, but granted a “last chance,” JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said Tuesday.
Watts, a 15-year employee with no previous disciplinary record, will be able to keep her job if she doesn’t get any more performance-related infractions in the next two years, Smith said.
Watts was doing rounds on Jan. 7, but not as frequently as required, when inmate Terry Hupp committed suicide on her watch, Smith said. It was determined that Watts falsified records to make it appear she conducted the required rounds.
A Dayton Daily News investigative report last month noted that prison officials are reviewing their suicide-prevention policies after eight inmates killed themselves in Ohio prisons in 2012, double the 2011 number. Hupp’s was the 60th suicide in the Ohio prisons since 2004. Nine of them were at Lebanon Correctional Institution, which is second only to the maximum-security prison in Lucasville in suicides during the period.
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