A federal indictment was unsealed yesterday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, charging a former private prisoner officer with sexually assaulting a male pretrial detainee during a prisoner transport and later lying to the FBI.
According to the indictment, at the time of the alleged crime, Dewayne Dudley, 55, of Claremore, Oklahoma, worked as a private prisoner transport officer for Blue Raven Services, a company that was hired by local jails and prisons throughout the country to transport people who had been arrested pursuant to out-of-state warrants and needed to be transported back to the states that had issued the warrants.
Count One of the indictment charges Dudley, while acting under color of law, with willfully depriving a male pretrial detainee whom he was transporting from Indiana to New Mexico, of his constitutional right to bodily integrity. The indictment alleges that Dudley’s conduct resulted in bodily injury to the victim and kidnapping. Count Two charges Dudley with knowingly and willfully making false statements to a Special Agent with the FBI regarding his transport of the victim.
If convicted, Dudley faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Clinton Johnson for the Northern District of Oklahoma made the announcement.
The case is being investigated by the FBI Oklahoma City Field Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Compton for the Northern District of Oklahoma and Trial Attorney Laura Gilson of the Civil Rights Division are prosecuting the case.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
