In this episode, we speak with the Director of Juvenile Justice in Butler County, Ohio, about an alleged sexual assault involving a minor high school student and a convicted criminal. We also speak with a member of the Butler County Sheriff's Office and the Public Relations Coordinator of the DA's Office.
00:01:12.000And one thing I know is that if somebody is intent on doing something, it's very hard to stop it completely because you can move around, and while an officer is doing his rounds, you can step inside a cell for a very short period of time, engaged in some nefarious activity, like brain.
00:01:44.000Um, I would prefer to speak on behalf of the district.
00:01:47.000So, as of last year, then, how did the program just end?
00:01:50.000Is it the sheriff's office that stopped it?
00:01:51.000Because from my understanding, the sheriff's office told me that after they learned of the incident, that they were the ones that stopped the program.
00:01:56.000No, that's not something that I'm aware of.
00:01:57.000That would be a question for the Sheriff's Office, if that's something that... I mean, are you aware that the Sheriff's Office is no longer... Well, I believe that we temporarily suspended it.
00:02:10.000Hey, I can connect you down to his office.
00:02:13.000However, we are on summer break, so... We really have a skeleton crew here right now.
00:02:55.000I'll give you my email address, and you can send me an email with the particulars that you know.
00:03:02.000I will go through the proper channels with Marshall Service Headquarters to see, you know, what information we can relay to you, but I also believe with very respectfully that you need to do a FOIA request asking information if there was an investigation done by the Marshall Service, you know, if, you know, something to that effect, what information I don't know if this jogs your memory at all.
00:03:25.000Willie Attaway and Larkin McGowan are the federal inmates involved.
00:03:55.000Well, what I can say is, based on what you guys advised us of on Friday, we are formalizing a written response that once it gets approval from Marshall Service Headquarters, I will forward to you.
00:04:30.000Marshals have opened an investigation into a massive cover-up within the Butler County, Ohio, jail.
00:04:37.000And I know that exclusively because of our undercover unit and you, the supporting members of Mug Club.
00:04:43.000Second, I'm going to let you know how this seemingly local story actually directly affects and impacts you and your community.
00:04:54.000To start with, a 17-year-old girl was taking part in a school vocational program.
00:05:00.000In which she spent time with violent federal inmates who proceeded to coerce and manipulate her into sexual acts and trafficking contraband.
00:05:12.000And who, if anybody, could have stopped it?
00:05:15.000According to all of the information available, the incident was buried by both those in charge at the Butler Tech Justice Program, that's the vocational school, and the Butler County Sheriff's Department itself.
00:05:39.000And I'm sure that 17-year-old girls being exposed to and left with violent federal inmates might reflect poorly on the publicly funded Butler Tech vocational program.
00:05:50.000Key terms here being contracts and publicly funded.
00:05:56.000Starting to see how this could happen in your community?
00:07:52.000Jane Doe, a female high school student, was interning as a correctional officer through this criminal justice program at Butler Tech, an alternative learning institution based in Hamilton, Ohio.
00:08:06.000Now, we, of course, are not going to reveal the name of this person because she's a minor and she's a victim of the incompetency of her program's leadership and the jail's correctional staff within the Butler County Sheriff's Department.
00:08:22.000According to Butler Tech's website, students on the criminal justice track will put on a uniform and uphold the law of the land with a future in criminal justice and explore all angles of law enforcement from police training to court proceedings, forensics and investigations to crisis response.
00:08:40.000As part of the internship program, this Jane Doe was placed In the Butler County Jail.
00:08:47.000Now, it should be noted until 2021, Butler County worked with ICE to house immigrants while their asylum cases were pending.
00:08:54.000For the first time in about 17 years, Butler County Sheriff's Office will no longer work with ICE to jail immigrants.
00:09:00.000The sheriff terminated the contract with the Department of Homeland Security this week.
00:09:05.000WCPO 9 News reporter Courtney Francisco found out what this means for people held prisoner under the old contract.
00:09:12.000Life inside Butler County Jail's immigrant quarters will change over the next 60 days, attorneys say.
00:09:19.000Butler County received a hefty sum to do so.
00:09:23.000In 2017, the marshals made a deal with the jail for $8.2 million over five years to house ICE detainees.
00:09:31.000In 2017, WCPO's investigative team told you the federal government used taxpayer dollars to pay the jail about $8.2 million over five years to house ICE detainees.
00:09:41.000After somewhere around 17 years, Butler County Jail ended their contract with the Department of Homeland Security, citing that federal officials continue to add unreasonable and cost-prohibitive mandates.
00:09:52.000Now, our source indicated that the Butler County Jail now receives $10 million in federal funding to house federal inmates on behalf of the U.S.
00:10:01.000We did find a 2014 contract agreement between the United States Marshals Service and the Butler County Jail signed by current Sheriff Richard Jones, which showed a deal totaling $8.4 million.
00:10:14.000That means that when Jane Doe started her program, it was known She would be working in proximity with federal inmates, including, again, hardened criminals guilty of everything up to and including murder.
00:10:27.000Now, while that may seem questionable, it could figuratively all have been done above board if all the proper procedures had been followed.
00:10:39.000And what happened as a result cannot be considered anything close to above board.
00:10:45.000So according to our source, Jane Doe, a high school student, a minor at the time, was routinely left unsupervised in the facility with, again, hardened inmates.
00:10:56.000For reference, here's a photo of where Jane Doe might have worked.
00:11:02.000Now, this minor female, a girl, was then coerced over the course of her internship into smuggling contraband, including drugs, cell phones, and cigarettes.
00:11:13.000However, that pales in comparison to what happened between Jane Doe, this minor female, and two inmates, Willie Attaway and Larkin McGowan.
00:11:25.000Attaway is being held at Butler County for murdering the owner of a store during armed robbery.
00:11:30.000A man pleads guilty to murdering a convenience store owner and five other armed robberies in all.
00:11:35.000The robberies happening in Hamilton, Lebanon, Deerfield Township, Blue Ash and Madeira.
00:11:39.00032-year-old Willie James Attaway now admitting To murdering the owner of the Madeira Beverage.
00:12:01.000That's just the cherry on top of a long history.
00:12:05.000Containing criminal drug charges, domestic abuse, you can read up on it.
00:12:09.000Now, McGowan has a criminal history of violent crimes, including burglary, aggravated robbery, you know, the run-of-the-mill stuff.
00:12:17.000According to our source, these inmates actively manipulated, groomed, and coerced Jane Doe into sexual acts, including not limited to sodomy.
00:12:30.000These claims are supported by letters.
00:12:35.000That we have obtained between Jane Doe.
00:15:17.000In one particularly graphic letter to Jane Doe, he writes, Make sure you write your phone number down on a small piece of paper, ball it up real small, and when you do your rounds, flick it in my cell.
00:15:32.000My cellie is my homie from the streets, so we good, and you ain't gotta have no worries dealing with us at all.
00:15:38.000It's the others you gotta be careful about.
00:16:22.000I was excited to see you today, and I'm a call tonight between 9 and 9.30.
00:16:26.000And please stop accepting notes from these n****s. And the s*** I be doing in my cell and in the shower, you can't do that with other people, because you minds only.
00:16:50.000They haven't faced any punishment yet, but there is an ongoing C-10 investigation, according to Chief Deputy Dwyer, and according to Ohio.gov, a C-10 violation in this case means that even if found guilty, the inmates could really face nothing more than a restriction of certain privileges for a designated period of time.
00:17:15.000So, in order to corroborate what the source had given us, we FOIA'd the incident report, as well as any communications between Jane Doe and the inmates.
00:17:24.000We were successful with the incident report confirming a relationship between this girl, Jane Doe, and the inmates, but were denied the letters or any other forms of communication.
00:17:36.000So, naturally, we had more than a few questions.
00:17:39.000Namely, what kind of a program What kind of a publicly funded program would leave minors unattended with murderers?
00:17:54.000We reached out to Butler Tech for answers, and what we got included a slew of contradicting answers across 24 separate phone calls.
00:18:04.000First spoke with Butler Tech Secretary Lacey Holman, who assured us that under no circumstances would a minor ever be left alone in this kind of a situation.
00:18:16.000So wait, so you said they do a tour, but they're not, she would never be alone with a convicted criminal.
00:18:58.000This is not what we would call taken care of.
00:19:03.000So next, we reached out to the head of the program, Aaron Fitzgerald, who told us that while interns may, from time to time, be left alone, nothing bad has ever happened as a result.
00:19:17.000Would a student ever be alone with a criminal in the jail?
00:19:29.000Yeah, I mean, I select those students who are going to do the internships their senior year.
00:19:40.000But, I mean, yes, they will be, I mean, those students who do the internship at a jail, they will be working in a full-fledged jail facility.
00:20:28.000So they're getting experience before they become an adult?
00:20:32.000Why wouldn't you guys just... I mean and you know here's the thing I can kind of like I mean there's probably there's probably never been like an incident right?
00:20:46.000Um, I mean... I mean, we... I mean, but... I can tell you that, but I mean, it's a jail facility, so things, you know... Things can happen, right?
00:20:57.000But... Things happen, that's what happened in jail.
00:21:08.000So no students... I can tell her that.
00:21:10.000No students been assaulted through Butler Tech at the jail.
00:21:14.000Finally, we spoke with Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer, who told us that not only were the interns left alone, but something bad actually did happen.
00:21:25.000What was incorrect about what I had stated in my voicemail?
00:21:31.000Once again, it's a pending criminal case.
00:21:33.000The person in this case, the juvenile, has been charged.
00:23:01.000So now we have a harrowing hair-raising incident involving a girl, violent federal inmates, including a murderer, and the high school can't help.
00:24:02.000I'm almost positive that they spoke to the marshals and notified them of the incident.
00:24:07.000Unfortunately, when we spoke with the very helpful, by the way, Assistant Chief Deputy
00:24:13.000U.S. Marshal Melissa Duffy, who our source indicated was responsible for the inmates
00:24:20.000she indicated that the marshals in fact did not know and as a result of now
00:24:28.000knowing they were launching an investigation Two days later, June 17th, Duffy informed us that the U.S.
00:24:51.000Marshals would be providing a written statement and assured us that they were taking the matter very seriously.
00:24:58.000I just wanted to confirm that **** said that you weren't aware of this before we called or brought it to your attention, right?
00:25:06.000Well, what I can say is, based on what you guys advised us of on Friday, we are formalizing a written response that once it gets approval from Marshall Service Headquarters, I will forward to you.
00:25:33.000And we understand the sensitivity of the matter, but, and hence why we are doing a written statement that is going, it's coming out between the Marshall Service here, Southern Ohio and Marshall Service headquarters.
00:25:49.000And as soon as I receive that as, you know, from my senior management here locally, which I am a part of obviously, we will forward it on and I will personally make sure that you receive it.
00:26:01.000As of this recording, We are still waiting to receive the letter.
00:26:09.000Now, during that same call, Dwyer also downplayed Jane Doe's status as a minor, and altogether the seriousness of the situation.
00:26:20.000I don't know who you've talked to, but generally with a pending criminal case, we don't talk much about those.
00:26:24.000I also want to make sure that things are accurate, that you're getting the right information and not, I'm assuming as a journalist, you're, you know, you want to have accurate information that you can report.
00:26:53.000I'm almost positive that they spoke to the marshals and notified them of the incident.
00:26:56.000I've been involved in this for quite a while in the jail, and I'm aware that if you're intent on doing something, it's almost impossible to stop.
00:27:05.000As long as I've been here, I've had correctional officers engaged in sexual activity within
00:28:30.000We understand there's video of her being sodomized by these men on her cell phone.
00:28:35.000So you're telling me there was a guard in earshot of this?
00:28:39.000There was at all times from my understanding of the investigation another officer inside I think there was another cell phone involved, and I don't believe that they authenticated any video of the actual incident occurring.
00:29:23.000If somebody wants to come here so we can exchange that information or receive it, yes, we would take any information if it's relevant to the case.
00:29:30.000Obviously we want to get to the truth of the matter and I believe at the time they did have her phone and they scanned her phone.
00:29:39.000We have all that, so if there's something else, and I was aware of another video that I believe is unrelated, but yes, anybody, if somebody wants to bring information here and share it, I'd appreciate that.
00:29:50.000Now, while we were in Butler County, my team also visited Butler Tech.
00:29:55.000Unfortunately, the place was largely a ghost town with only a secretary who knew very little, but still looking for answers.
00:30:02.000The Mug Club undercover unit visited the home of Butler Tech program lead Aaron Fitzgerald, And that is when the following exchange took place.
00:32:52.000Who is actually in charge of running an investigation once an incident like this has already taken place and ensuring that it doesn't take place again?
00:33:01.000Are you seeing how this could happen in any community across the United States?
00:33:06.000Not just with this type of a program, but any publicly funded, taxpayer funded program.
00:33:14.000It seems that anytime public funding or grants are involved, people have a vested interest in ensuring that that continues.
00:33:24.000But where do you go as a taxpaying citizen for accountability, for answers, when your public servants aren't actually serving you?
00:33:37.000Where do you go when your public servants are actually serving you up?
00:34:07.000Who would have a vested interest in possibly catching these incidents?
00:34:14.000And how can you be assured that that person has enough of a conscience to risk going upstream against the grain with everybody else who wants to ensure that it never sees the light of day?