Guard charged in prison sex case

Bill Gang and Cathy Scott

Friday, Feb. 27, 1998 | 12:38 p.m.

Rape charges have been filed against a Metro Police corrections officer at the Clark County Detention Center.

Officer Raymond Jay Harts, 33, is charged with sexually assaulting four female inmates between Nov. 4 and Jan. 10, according to a criminal complaint filed by the district attorney in District Court.

At a press conference today, Sheriff Jerry Keller said there could be more victims.

The complaint charges Harts with trading food, clothes and blankets for sex and for using the power of his position to force women to have sex with him.

One of Harts' victims may have become pregnant as the result of an assault, Detective Mathew McCarthy said in an affidavit. Some of the victims told investigators the sex acts were consensual. Even consensual sexual acts between corrections officers and prisoners are felonies, however, according to Nevada law.

All of the victims were housed in protective custody on the second floor of the jail, which is run by Metro Police, Keller said today. The victims were not allowed to mingle with the general population, Keller said. The people the victims had the most contact with were corrections officers, he said.

The alleged crimes were committed either inside the women's cells or in closed visiting rooms, Keller said.

Roughly 300 women are housed inside the facility, which today has a total population of 1,717 inmates, Deputy Chief Dave Sweikert said.

Another victim, according to the affidavit, had been left naked in her cell because she was on suicide watch and was coerced into performing sexual acts with promises of blankets and extra food trays.

McCarthy stated that the victim had indicated Harts had warned her, "If you tell anyone ..." just before he forced her into a sex act.

The third victim admitted she had told Harts she wanted to have sex with him but indicated she said it only because she was "out of it" as a result of a head injury she suffered in an auto accident.

A fourth victim said she was confronted and fondled by Harts "immediately" after being jailed in her cell. She said he exposed himself and told her she would have to perform a sex act to obtain a cigarette, McCarthy said in his affidavit.

That assault, the complaint said, resulted in charges of open and gross lewdness and indecent exposure.

"We have no idea how many victims there are," Keller told reporters, adding that Harts was fully clothed during all of the assaults and "simply unzipped his pants" to commit the crimes. He encouraged other possible victims to come forward.

Harts was placed on paid administrative leave Feb. 10 pending the outcome of the investigation. He has now been charged with felony sexual assault, engaging in voluntary sexual conduct with a prisoner, coercion, open and gross lewdness and indecent exposure. It was first reported in the SUN last week that Harts was under criminal investigation.

Harts, who was hired by Metro in December 1996, was formerly a prison corrections officer at the Southern Desert Correction Center near Indian Springs, a prison source said.

The sexual assault counts carry the possibility of life prison terms.

McCarthy said there were several similarities in the stories of each woman about the assaults. He also said there was a time when three of the women were housed in the same module and could have conversed.

The affidavit indicates that one woman's story was bolstered by a statement from a jail trustee.

That male trustee stated that after seeing one of the women he commented to Harts, "I'd like to have her," and the officer responded, "I already had her."

Hartz then gave details of the sexual encounter, the trustee told investigators.