Sexual assault in jail detailed

Kim Smith

Wednesday, May 15, 2002 | 8:46 a.m.

A Las Vegas woman who claims she was sexually assaulted by a corrections officer while in jail last year said she was too afraid to report the incidents at first.

"I was scared. You hear stories. I thought all of the guards stuck together," the woman testified on the first day of Mark Bennish's trial.

Bennish, 39, is facing three counts of voluntary sexual conduct with a prisoner, which is punishable by one to four years in prison.

Prosecutors allege he used his position of authority to force two young women to engage in sex acts while they were incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center two years ago.

Bennish is no longer employed by Metro Police.

The 22-year-old woman who testified Tuesday said she was booked into the jail on April 20, 2000, on burglary and forgery charges. She was later given probation and required to go through Drug Court.

She first met Bennish a month after she was jailed. He asked her for her name and why she had been arrested. She said she thought he was a "nice guy."

Two days later, at around 1 a.m., the woman said, Bennish unlocked her cell and gave her milk and snacks normally reserved for pregnant inmates. Noticing that it was hot in the cell, the woman said Bennish used some tools to adjust a vent.

He then stuck the tool down her bra as she stood by with a flashlight, the woman said. Feeling uncomfortable, she made a joke and sat on her bunk.

"He crawled over to my bed and started to tell me he can't control himself when he is around me and that he'd felt something for me from the first time he saw me," the woman said.

Bennish groped her, forced her to grope him and only stopped when her sleeping cellmate made a noise, the woman said.

The incident was only the first of many she described Tuesday.

She told Deputy District Attorney Jim Sweetin she was too afraid to say anything to anyone for a long time. She said the incidents kept getting worse, though, so she finally told her father and police.

"Officer Bennish controlled all of the situations while I was in there and I didn't know if he was a violent person," she said.

The woman testified she has filed a federal lawsuit against Bennish at the urging of her criminal attorney.

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Herb Sachs, she acknowledged she is also suing the state and Clark County.

Sachs was to continue his cross-examination of the woman this morning.