3 DOC officers now on admin leave

Department of Corrections Commissioner Anthony Torres has officially placed three of his officers on administration leave pending investigation into a recent incident where a female inmate was allegedly raped within the prison and found in a male inmate’s cell.

Last week, a female inmate (whose identity will remain withheld pending rape allegations) and a male inmate, Gerald Sablan, were found in Sablan’s unit at DOC. When they were found, the alleged victim claimed she was forced to have conjugal relations with Sablan.

Last Friday, Torres held a press conference where he shared details about the pending investigation.

One of the most recent updates shared was that since an investigation into the incident was launched, Torres has placed three of his officers who were on duty at the time on admin leave.

Specifically, Torres said among the officers who were placed on admin leave, two are male and one is female. They are a mixture of seasoned and fairly new officers.

“Given it’s still a pending investigation, I have three officers who are on admin leave. Until we wrap up this investigation, then I can brief the public on more of the findings,” he said.

When asked whether the officers were involved in facilitating the incident, Torres said he could not comment pending investigation.

“With that, given the investigation is pending, I can’t comment. How she got there, given its a pending investigation, I’m not going to comment on that. But staff are not allowed to allow opposite gender inmates to visit one another. Male and female inmates are housed in different sections and there are officers stationed in each section. Cross-gendered visits aren’t allowed,” he said.

In addition to placing officers on admin leave, Torres said additional measures have been implemented or are underway. One of the forthcoming measures, Torres said, is the addition of more surveillance cameras within the facility as the area where the incident happened had none.

“We’re also adding more measures; we’ve transferred Sablan, in May we will be adding more surveillance cameras in the facility, and I’m also looking to obtain grants for body cams for all my officers to wear. That’s forthcoming, hopefully sometime this year… There is no surveillance in the area where Sablan is housed. When this place was built, surveillance cameras were only placed in certain areas so when I came on, I decided we were going to add more cameras. From my understanding, this was because no funding had been identified, but I managed to push it through when I got in,” he said.

Torres said he anticipates the investigation to conclude in the next two to three weeks.

As DOC, DOC’s Internal Affairs, and the Department of Public Safety continue its investigation, Torres asks that the community remain patient and he ensures that he prioritizes transparency and will provide more information when it is appropriate to do so.

“As DOC commissioner, I wear many hats. I don’t have a public information officer so I am the public information officer as well. But that’s OK, this is what I signed up for and what I’m here to do. Transparency is a priority and since the beginning, I’ve been transparent and open. I am committed to providing accurate and timely updates as soon as its appropriate to do so without compromising the investigation. My great staff and our department are doing everything in our power to do things right. Unfortunately, things happen in this business. We train to be proactive but even more importantly, we train to be reactive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Torres also shared additional findings on the incident itself. Specifically, Torres shared that DOC officers and Internal Affairs officers were able to retrieve intimate letters between Sablan and the female inmate. Torres said that the female was allegedly seen trying to flush the letters down the toilet while Sablan handed his to officers.

“As to Gerald being in the female unit, that was false. The alleged victim was found in Sablan’s unit. In the male section, Sablan is housed by himself thus they were separated. Early Thursday morning, my staff found the alleged victim in [Sablan’s] cell and immediately locked down the whole facility. Fortunately, Internal Affairs was on duty at the time and as they went to go question the alleged victim, she was caught throwing intimate letters between herself and Sablan, into the toilet. DOC staff were able to retrieve that. In an interview with Sablan, he was able to provide intimate letters between himself and the victim,” he said.

Torres also shared that a rape kit (essentially an examination to determine if there are signs of sexual assault on the female’s body) was conducted on the alleged victim, but he did not share the findings of the rape kit.

“As soon as I was called when this happened, my staff took the alleged victim to the [Commonwealth Health Center] emergency room where I met with her. A rape kit was conducted on her and DPS was notified. I remained for a couple of hours to talk to my staff to find out what transpired. Social worker was also called,” he said.

Torres notes that no charges have been filed yet in this case.

“There was a complaint made and right now the investigation is ongoing. No charges have been filed,” he said.

Anthony Torres