Tennessee Jail Guard Impregnated Lesbian Inmate. She Says It Was Rape.

A lesbian inmate who was allegedly raped and impregnated by a Tennessee guard has filed a million-dollar civil rights lawsuit against him.

Jessica Fowler, 31, was booked into Moore County Jail in September 2016 on a probation violation. Five months later, corrections officer Caleb Shane Hopkins began coercing her into sex with him, the federal lawsuit claims.

Hopkins continued to sexually assault her, Fowler claims, until she discovered she was pregnant in May 2017 and informed a jail sergeant.

According to the complaint, Fowler “is a lesbian and not attracted to men, including Defendant Hopkins.” Her attorney says that her sexual orientation adds weight to the allegations against Hopkins, showing their meetings weren’t consensual.

“To me, this shows this is not something she would have sought out,” Ben Raybin, an attorney for Fowler, told The Daily Beast.

“There’s always those questions of victim-blaming and second-guessing,” Rabyn added. “That really, to me, should remove any question about that.”

Hopkins, 30, is accused of giving Fowler cigarettes and prescription drugs to obtain her silence over the alleged assaults. The officer also allegedly warned her not to tell anyone what happened and said no one would believe her.

The “coercive atmosphere and power imbalance” led to Hopkins repeatedly sexually assaulting Fowler, the complaint alleges. Fowler says she felt she couldn’t refuse Hopkins’ requests because of his power and authority over her.

In November, Hopkins pled guilty to felony charges including six counts of sexual contact with an inmate by a law enforcement officer, and two counts of official misconduct. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23, the lawsuit says.

Raybin told NewsChannel 5 that Fowler “wants people to know what has happened to her and wants to make other women feel empowered that they can speak out, too.”

Hopkins is listed on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry, state records show. Under offenses, the listing says “sexual contact with inmates.”

The former corrections officer was indicted in June of last year, following a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe.

Hopkins carried out the alleged assaults by following the same pattern: cornering Fowler while she was alone in the jail’s library at night, the complaint says.

The guard started at Moore County’s jail in Lynchburg in early 2017, but hadn’t completed his required training, court papers allege.

Around the same time, Fowler achieved “trustee” status because of her good behavior. This gave her additional freedoms, including a job washing clothes and jail credits to reduce her sentence, the lawsuit says.

Yet after she reported the alleged rapes, she was transferred to a state prison and lost her jail credits—leading to a longer sentence.

The officer first assaulted Fowler one night in February, when she was the only inmate working the laundry shift, the complaint claims. At the time, she waited in the library across the hall for the machines to finish the loads.

Hopkins was allegedly one of two guards working that night. The library doesn’t have surveillance, but one or more hallway cameras would have captured someone entering or leaving the room, the complaint states.

Still, Hopkins had no reason to be in the library, court papers allege. He is accused of approaching Fowler from behind and putting his hands down her shirt to grope her. Then he allegedly asked her “suck my ding dong.”

According to the suit, Hopkins coerced Fowler into oral sex in the library on several other occasions. Fowler told him she didn’t want to engage in the activity and that it was physically uncomfortable for her, the complaint alleges.

Hopkins, who was married, then demanded vaginal sex from Fowler and ordered her to “bend over,” the lawsuit claims. When Fowler requested the deputy use a condom, he allegedly refused and said “married men don’t buy condoms.”

Fowler “felt coerced by Defendant Hopkin’s authority over her into complying to avoid retribution and retaliation,” court papers state.

The rogue deputy continued to force Fowler to have nonconsensual and unprotected sex four times over a period of a few weeks, the lawsuit claims.

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