ARKANSAS
ArkansasOnline
September 9, 2017
By Jeannie Roberts
Lawyer says filing spotlights trouble
The lawyer for a female state prisoner who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a prison chaplain announced Friday that a civil-rights lawsuit has been filed against the Department of Correction, the chaplain and other officials.
Carolyn Arnett, an inmate at the McPherson Unit, said in the lawsuit that department Director Wendy Kelley and other administrators allowed “rampant” institutional failures and a culture of sexual and physical abuse that enabled former prison chaplain Kenneth Dewitt to abuse several female inmates.
Dewitt, 68, pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse in July 2016 in relation to assaults against Arnett and two other female inmates. He will likely spend five years in prison. He was sentenced to 10 years with five years suspended on each count, all to run concurrently. He is currently an inmate at the Ouachita River Unit. He was originally charged with 50 counts that carried a possible 500 years in prison.
Prison spokesman Solomon Graves declined to comment Friday, citing pending litigation.
[DOCUMENT: Read Arkansas inmate’s full lawsuit]
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.