The Ottumwa Residential Correctional Facility. (Photo via Google Earth)
A former corrections officer is suing the state for allegedly firing him after he was wrongfully accused of sexual relations with an inmate.
Jarrod Eugene Diers of Mahaska County is suing the Ottumwa Residential Correctional Facility, a state-run work-treatment facility; its manager, Ted Robinson; Dan Fell, the director of the Eighth District of the Iowa Department of Corrections; and corrections employees Lisa Houk and Nycole Harbison.
The lawsuit, which was moved recently from state court to federal court, seeks unspecified damages for defamation, denial of due process and interference with a contractual relationship.
According to the lawsuit, Diers worked at the Ottumwa Residential Correctional Facility as a residential officer from April 2023 until June 2023, when he was fired. Within a few weeks of being hired, Diers claims, he learned that a rumor was circulating at work that he had been sexually intimate with a male inmate.
A co-worker allegedly showed Diers an image the co-worker had created using photo-editing software to depict Diers in a tuxedo standing next to a male inmate in a wedding dress. The co-worker allegedly stated that Houk had started and was spreading a rumor about Diers and the inmate.
Subsequently, multiple corrections employees asked Diers about the rumor, as did two inmates. One of those inmates allegedly told Diers they knew Houk was spreading the rumor. In late May, the corrections facility launched an investigation of Diers, at which point two inmates allegedly offered to make statements on Diers’ behalf. According to the lawsuit, Diers told the inmates that if they wanted to provide statements, he would submit them on their behalf.
According to the lawsuit, the facility later alleged that by answering the inmates’ questions about submitting statements, Diers had impeded the investigation. On May 30, Diers was suspended without pay and one month later, he was fired.
The lawsuit alleges corrections officials never investigated Houk’s reported role in the matter.
The defendants have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.
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