Female employee of halfway house gets off due to technicality

A woman had charges dismissed for having sex with a resident in a halfway house because the sexual misconduct occurred outside the detention facility, and the law said that the sex had to occur within the facility. US District Judge Dale Kimball said that the requirement of sex within the facility made in impossible for charges to stick against Ashley Ford, a hall monitor at a federal halfway house.

Ford allegedly had sex with a work release inmate from the Cornell Community Corrections Center in South Salt Lake in her apartment while she was off duty. She met the resident at a party in October 2006, a month before she was hired as a hall monitor at the facility. Sexual contact, which always occurred at Ford’s apartment, occurred twice, and led to a pregnancy.

Arguing against the dismissal, prosecutor Trina Higgins said the resident was allowed to bring alcohol into Cornell and hold parties there on Saturday nights during his relationship with Ford.

In addition, the resident tried to force Ford to have an abortion and claimed she wrote bogus disciplinary reports about him because she was jealous of his relationships with other women, Higgins said. A federal grand jury indicted Ford last September on a count of sexual misconduct with a ward in a federal institution.

In a motion to dismiss, defense attorney Edward Montgomery argued that Ford had the same status as any other citizen when she was off duty and did not have any custodial authority over the resident. In addition, he said the sex occurred outside the facility, which provides monitoring of pre-trial defendants and helps those who are finishing their sentences prepare to go back into society.

Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said the office is reviewing Kimball's ruling.

The resident was sentenced to 46 months in prison for weapons charges. In other states, cases regarding teachers and students have withstood appeal, despite arguments that the teacher/student relationship ended when school ended.