Correction officer Kareem Dawson, the third employee of the Janet S. York Correctional Institution charged with sexually assaulting a 28-year-old inmate, is accused of flirting with the woman before approaching her while she was taking a shower in March 2014 and initiating a sexual encounter.  

Dawson, 34, was charged June 30 with second-degree sexual assault following a state police investigation at the Niantic women's prison.

The Department of Correction has placed Dawson, an employee of nine years, on administrative leave. Free on a $25,000 bond, he has retained attorney Hubert Santos and is scheduled to be arraigned in New London Superior Court on Aug. 10.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit in his court file, Dawson denied having sexual contact with the inmate during a meeting in February with state police detectives at Troop E in Montville.

The state police began investigating the case on Oct. 31, 2014, after a correction official called the troop to report that a 28-year-old inmate alleged she had sexual contact with three different correction officers.

Like correction officers Jeffery Bromley, 47, and Matthew Gillette, 44, Dawson is accused of having sexual contact with the woman while she was housed in the Davis Building, where prisoners undergo an intensive substance abuse rehabilitation program.The building was not equipped with video surveillance cameras.

The inmate disclosed personal and intimate knowledge of each of the correctional officer's bodies, according to the detectives.

Bromley and Gillette both have been fired, according to the Department of Correction. They have been making regular appearances in New London Superior Court, where their criminal cases are pending.

The woman, sentenced to prison in August 2013 and since released on parole, reported her relationship with Dawson began in March 2014, when Dawson was working a day shift on the first floor of the Davis building.

She said he would engage her in friendly and flirtatious behavior and compliment her on her body and that she would occasionally meet him in an office and kiss him.

She said she was taking a shower in a single-person bathroom on the first floor when Dawson walked in, approached her and initiated a sexual act.

She said Dawson asked her to write him notes of a sexual manner and she complied, writing three notes on composition paper and handing them to him in the Davis building. She said a second sexual encounter occurred after Dawson asked her to meet him in the basement.

She said he unlocked a door, led her into a closet, began fondling her and asked her to perform a sex act on him. The woman provided detectives with a detailed description of the basement, an area to which inmates have no access, according to the affidavit.

State and federal law prohibits correction officers from engaging in sexual relations with inmates, and the Department of Correction, in compliance with the federal Prison Rape and Elimination Act, has adopted a zero tolerance policy.

Department directives also prohibit employees from sharing suggestive letters or photographs with inmates and being involved in an inmate's private life outside of one's assigned professional duties.

When the woman "began these sexual acts with the correctional officers she believed it was consensual," according to the affidavit. "However, she would think to herself that if she no longer continued with the sex acts that these correctional officers have physical control over her in the facility and there may be repercussions."

The woman told two other inmates about the sexual encounters, and they were interviewed during the investigation.

k.florin@theday.com

Twitter: @KFLORIN