Prison That Didn’t Report Sex Abuse Allegation Against Staffer to Reopen as ICE Camp
A whistleblower says the warden didn’t make a federally required disclosure. Now the company is turning the Arizona prison into an ICE jail. The post Prison That Didn’t Report Sex Abuse Allegation Against Staffer to Reopen as ICE Camp appeared first on The Intercept .
According to a whistleblower, allegations of sexual abuse were reported at Arizona State Prison–Marana in 2022. A clerk at the commissary, Alicia Simmons, was accused of having a sexual relationship with an incarcerated individual. The situation escalated after a fight broke out between prisoners over Simmons. She was fired by the prison company MTC and searched by authorities.
A PREA packet was prepared by a high-ranking prison guard, clearing the way for the allegations to become public in an annual PREA audit. However, the audit published in 2023 did not mention any incidents of sexual abuse or harassment at Marana. A former MTC employee confirmed he had direct conversations with the warden about the allegations.
Despite knowledge of the allegations, the warden, Jeremy Casey, stated in the audit that there were no reported incidents of sexual abuse or harassment. There were at least two other reported incidents of sexual abuse during the same period, but they did not appear in the subsequent audit. Marana was closed in 2023 and is set to reopen as an ICE detention center.
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