CLARKSBURG – A female inmate who was housed at a federal prison in Preston County has filed a lawsuit claiming she was raped, sexually assaulted and battered while incarcerated.
The plaintiff, identified only as K.J., filed her complaint June 8 in U.S. District Court against the federal government, Officer Larry Martin and Federal Correctional Complex Hazleton.
The core group of her attorneys, including L. Dante diTrapano, have filed several similar lawsuits in recent years.
diTrapano
“This is yet another horrifying instance of a government employee with complete authority, power and control sexually assaulting a helpless female inmate,” diTrapano told The West Virginia Record. “Being raped by correctional officers was not part of K.J.’s sentence.”
According to the complaint, K.J. was serving time at Hazleton in November 2019 when another inmate told her to report to Martin’s office. Martin was working as a night officer, and his shift was from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. K.J. says Martin had taken a leave of absence the month for a drug and/or alcohol problem.
When she entered Martin’s office, she says he told her how beautiful she was and that he had searched for photos of her while he was on leave and saved them on his home computer. K.J. says she then tried to leave his office, but Martin ordered her to stay.
She says Martin then told him about his detoxification program and that he had considered suicide. He also said another officer, Tristan Martin, had given him pictures of K.J.
“These images had given him ‘a reason to live,’” Martin said, according to the complaint. He also told K.J. he was starting a bank account and planned to deposit $100 from each paycheck until she was released.
“He suggested that this bank account was prudent planning for the life that they would live together upon her release and that this ‘nest egg,’ such that it was, would be a form of personal insurance for K.J. in the event that she decided to ‘leave’ him,” the complaint states, before Martin went into a graphic sexual dialogue in which he said he wanted to impregnate K.J. against her will and “eat her ass for breakfast.”
The following week, K.J. says Martin again called her to his office, where he said he had purchased engagement rings and started the savings account he had mentioned before he against went into a sexual conversation and ordered K.J. to insert her fingers into her vagina then into his mouth. Fearing for her safety, she says she did as he asked.
“Martin then instructed K.J. to come closer to him, whereupon he put his hand in K.J.’s pants and used his fingers to repeatedly and forcibly penetrate her vagina while telling her to hold still,” the complaint states, adding that Martin called K.J. to his office again later in the day and did the same thing.
She says Martin soon bought her a watch engraved with the message “I (Heart) U,” a necklace, a pair of earrings and a “wedding band.”
Several weeks later, K.J. says Martin sexually assaulted her with his fingers in her anus before giving her a dildo and ordering her to use it and return to him. K.J. did as she was told, and she says Martin put it in his mouth and sucked on it.
She says he also ordered her to supply him with “explicit” love letters.
K.J. said she complied with Martin’s demands out of fear for her safety and fear of retaliation by Martin and other guards.
“The sheer frequency with which defendant Martin called K.J. (on the intercom system) should have caused other officers on the compound to make further inquiries to ensure the safety of K.J.,” the complaint states. “Martin began to monitor K.J. so closely that when he saw her getting ready to leave the housing unit to attend programming or activities, he would approach her and demand that she stay in the housing unit.”
K.J. says these restrictions kept her from earning credits she needed for possible early release. Martin also told her he was keeping the explicit letters he had ordered her to write to “use against her” if she “left him” or otherwise failed to submit to his demands.
She says Martin also played love songs on the intercom system for her, admitted to stalking her online and accessed her medical records to see if she had any sexually transmitted infections.
On December 14, 2019, K.J. says her mother, identified only as L.C., began receiving text messages and calls from an unknown number about K.J. They were from Martin’s phone. In one call, in which L.C. said Martin sounded inebriated, he identified himself as the guard who was in love with K.J.
When the mother expressed concern and said she was calling the prison, Martin allegedly told her he was going to drive to Minnesota and kill her. She did report the calls and texts messages, and Martin either resigned or was removed from his position that day.
Martin, however, continued to call and send messages to L.C. until January 2020.
On December 20, 2019, K.J. was searched. A letter she had written to Martin was found, and she reported that she had been sexually assaulted, harassed and abused by Martin for weeks. She also told the facility administrator that Tristin Martin had been aware of what Larry Martin was doing. The administrator ordered Tristan Martin to leave the compound.
K.J. was placed in segregated housing involuntarily until February 13, 2020. Her bunkmate, identified only as K.H., also was place there because of her knowledge of the alleged assaults.
During a January 8, 2020, interview, K.J. says the investigator suggested she was responsible for her own sexual assault at the hands of Martin. She says he asked her questions such as, “Did you like it?” and “Did you enjoy it?”
On February 13, 2020, K.J. and K.H. were transported by bus and plane, eventually to FCI Aliceville in Alabama.
On the plane, K.J. says an Air Marshall on the plane warned another not to talk to the two women “if he wanted to keep his job.” And for the final 10 hours of the trip by bus, she asked an officer for sanitary pads or tampons but was denied them. She says she was covered in menstrual blood when she arrived at Aliceville, where she remains today.
K.J. accuses Martin of sexual assault and battery, which is a deprivation of her constitutional rights. She accuses the federal government of negligence as well as assault and battery.
She seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages from Martin, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
She is being represented by diTrapano and Benjamin Adams of Calwell Luce diTrapano in Charleston, Jay T. McCamic of McCamic Law Firm in Wheeling, Anthony I. Werner of John & Werner Law Offices in Wheeling and W. Jesse Forbes of Forbes Law Offices in Charleston.
U.S. District Court case number 1:21-cv-00074
