A former Vermont Department of Corrections worker will spend at least four months in jail for sex offenses against a woman he had supervised.
Joshua Russ, 36, of Brattleboro, who had worked as a community corrections officer, pleaded no contest Tuesday in Windham County Superior criminal court in Brattleboro to sexual exploitation of a prisoner and committing a prohibited act.
As part of a plea deal, he was sentenced by Judge John Treadwell to four month to four years in prison.
Russ was arrested in June 2020. Police said they started an investigation after a woman reported to the Brattleboro Probation and Parole office that Russ, who had supervised her in the community, had paid her for oral sex.
Windham County Deputy State’s Attorney David Gartenstein told the court during the hearing that sexual contact between corrections personnel and people they’re supervising “undermines the integrity of the supervision process,” he said in an interview with VTDigger on Wednesday.
He said the plea agreement took into account the “totality of the circumstances.” The prosecutor said the victim could not be reached for input about the plea agreement despite attempts to contact her.
Bettina Buehler, an attorney for Russ, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, said Wednesday that Russ’s conduct outlined in court filings in the case was “outrageous” and “unacceptable.”
He said Russ’s job was to work in a community monitoring and ensuring compliance for people who are under the department’s supervision, typically on furlough.
Baker said most corrections department workers are “compassionate” and “selfless,” and “what Mr. Russ did is a betrayal of trust to every person in the Vermont Department of Corrections.”
According to the corrections department, Russ was a corrections officer at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield from 2005 to 2008. He was rehired as a community corrections officer in the Brattleboro Parole Office in 2019.
Russ resigned from his position in June 2020.
Gartenstein, the prosecutor, said Wednesday the pleas of no contest, rather than guilty, in the case stemmed from the liability Russ could face from a possible civil claim.
As part of the plea hearing Tuesday, Russ agreed the state could prove the statement of facts in the case, the prosecutor said. Those facts, according to a court filing, included that Russ “engaged in a sexual act” with the victim on Jan. 26, 2020, in Newfane and that act “was intentional and was not by mistake or accident.”
At that time, the filing stated, the victim was being supervised by the corrections department and Russ knew that, and he had a “direct supervisory relationship” with the victim.
In addition, according to the filing, in Brattleboro on March 29, 2020, Russ “made an appointment and paid [the victim] for sexual contact.” At the time, the filing stated, the victim was on furlough under corrections department supervision, though Russ was no longer at that point responsible for direct supervision of the victim.
Current state law bans Department of Corrections employees from having sexual contact with people they directly supervise.
A bill that passed the House and Senate earlier this year and signed into law last week by Gov. Phil Scott expands that law, outlawing sexual contact between corrections department employees and the people under the supervision of the department. That new law takes effect July 1.
That measure was included in a bill, H.435. that made other corrections department reforms. The reforms followed reports in Seven Days in December 2019 detailing allegations of sexual misconduct, staff drug use, and retaliation at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, the state’s only women’s prison.
An independent law firm hired to conduct an investigation into the allegations concluded in a December 2020 report that the charges were largely accurate.
Baker, the interim corrections commissioner, said Wednesday that the Russ case played a role in the reform legislation passed this year, specifically around the broader language regarding sexual conduct between corrections workers and people under the department’s supervision.
“It also played into my decision to start changing the hiring process,” the commissioner said.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated what Russ agreed to as part of the plea hearing.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Ex-corrections worker goes to jail for sexually exploiting woman he supervised.