Posted on 08/18/2022 12:00:05 PM PDT by thegagline
Advocates for inmates say the Nevada Department of Corrections is not doing enough to prevent sexual abuse in its prisons after a chaplain was fired and charged with assault of a female prisoner.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada filed a lawsuit in Clark County District Court against NDOC on July 29 for failing to prevent staff from carrying out further acts of cruel and unusual punishment. It comes after Donald Burse, 55, was accused of sexually assaulting and seeking sexual favors from an inmate at Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas in exchange for supplying contraband.
“What he has done, Donald Burse, by sexually assaulting [a prisoner], and then as well as NDOC’s actions — they not only violate Nevada law, but also the U.S. Constitution,” said ACLU of Nevada attorney Sadmira Ramic.
In the civil rights lawsuit against NDOC, the Nevada ACLU asks for “injunctive relief,” which means lawyers are challenging the prison in court to ensure that the situation does not repeat itself. The organization is asking NDOC to develop and implement the following policies, procedures, and practices to ensure that inmates are protected from sexual abuse and sexual harassment: *** The chaplain, who is the leader of religious programming and works with volunteer ministers at one or more prisons, is assigned by the prison system’s deputy director to carry out administrative and operational tasks for religious services. Burse was paid $53,000 a year by the state to provide faith support to inmates and staff at NDOC in accordance with constitutional guarantees that incarcerated people have the right to continue their religious practices.
In that capacity, an investigator said that Burse called Dawnyell Flynn into the office at the prison chapel to discuss sexual favors in exchange for spice (synthetic marijuana), alcohol and makeup. According to his lawyer’s statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the chaplain maintains his innocence, but the same news story reports that an investigator told authorities that during two separate conversations in the chapel office in the summer of 2020, Burse touched Flynn sexually under her shirt and in her pants, and on one occasion, performed a sex act on her on his desk.
The lawsuit alleges that Burse sexually assaulted Flynn twice during the summer of 2020. When Burse failed to deliver contraband to Flynn, who is serving a life sentence for a 2013 murder conviction, she filed a grievance with NDOC in August 2020 detailing the sex abuse, according to the complaint.
It was not until May 18, 2022, that Burse was fired from NDOC, and on the following day, the Nevada attorney general’s office filed three felony counts against him: two felony counts of sexual abuse of a prisoner by an employee and one felony count of unauthorized custodial conduct by an employee. ***
Fry ‘em.
Just in the ordinary work environment, I tried never to be alone with any employee of either sex. This fear of being falsely accused started for me sometime in the nineties. I think it was because of news segments regarding lawsuits. Even the accusation of impropriety was enough to get you fired. Prior to the nineties, you could probably have accused your heart out and even if the accusations were true, they’d have mostly been laughed off by the company.
ONLY IN NEVADA
Pastor of what the libtard church of woke and choke?
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