This case is mind boggling, however it highlights just how important it is to know your rights and the loopholes that exist out here in the legal arena. Also lends credence to the saying "use your time wisely" behind bars. Wow.
Iowa will pay $71,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former inmate
at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility who alleged sexual
harassment in employment at her prison job.
The lawsuit
established that prisoners have civil rights protections in employment.
It was successful after a 2010 Iowa Supreme Court decision that allowed
the case to move forward, said Jeffrey Thompson of the Iowa Attorney
General’s Office.
“We think it’s a fair resolution of a difficult case,” Thompson said of the $71,000 settlement.
The
case involved Melissa Lee Renda, 43, a Des Moines resident who was
serving time at the prison following a 2002 conviction of felony drug
charges.
In 2007, Renda filed a complaint with the Iowa
Civil Rights Commission that alleged sexual harassment and retaliation
in employment from her job as a discharge clerk, where she made $4.20 a
day.
Renda alleged that corrections officer Jim Ackles made romantic
advances towards her and that he gave her money and gifts — such as an
Eminem album — in violation of prison policies.
Renda also
alleged that Ackles threatened to have her transferred to the state
prison in Mitchellville if she reported the actions. She spent nine days
in solitary confinement after she initially declined to speak with an
investigator following an anonymous tip of Ackles’ alleged inappropriate
behavior. And she was fired from the job and later denied a position in
the prison’s recreation department, according to her lawsuit.
The
Iowa Civil Rights Commission ultimately closed the complaint because it
determined that a prisoner was not considered an employee under Iowa
law.
A district court affirmed the commission’s conclusion
but the Iowa Supreme Court in 2010 ruled that Renda’s status as a
prisoner did not necessarily preclude her from employee protections
under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
Renda, who was released from parole last year, will receive $25,000
while her attorney Roxanne Conlin will receive $46,000, according to a
settlement approved by the Iowa Appeal Board.
Renda currently lives in the Des Moines area. She took full advantage
of various prison drug and rehabilitation programs and is now employed,
Conlin said.
“She has made a wonderful life for herself,”
Conlin said. “She’s completely rehabilitated, she’s substance free and
she has a job she loves.”
Conlin said the case gives prisoners a necessary protection.
“One
of the things that makes a civil rights remedy important is that
prisoners are truly at the mercy of the staff of the guards and need
some kind of protection,” Conlin said. “I think in general our prisons
do a pretty good job but in this case, the guard took advantage of his
position and there needed to be a remedy.”
Ackles is still employed as a correctional officer at Mount Pleasant, state records show.
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