Fitchburg police are seeking sexual assault charges against an Oakhill Correctional Institution guard who is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with two inmates at the prison.

The charges are being sought in the wake of a second search warrant in their investigation of the female guard, this time at her far East Side home, where police turned up a packet of letters between the guard and one of the inmates. She is not being named in this story because she has not been arrested or charged with a crime.

Fitchburg Police Lt. Chad Brecklin said police turned over reports to the Dane County district attorney's office on Friday morning. Under state law prison workers who have sex with inmates can face second-degree sexual assault charges.

The search of the woman's home was done earlier this week after officials at the Fox Lake Correctional Institution, where the inmate has been transferred, turned over a transcript of a phone call recorded on Sept. 9 between the inmate and the guard in which she chastises the inmate for telling others about their relationship.
Inmates are told when placing phone calls that the calls are recorded.

"Why did you have to go and tell people?" the guard asked the inmate. "Those were our most intimate meet ... those were our most intimate ..."

The guard later told the inmate during the phone call that she could never trust him again.

"I believed every word you said in those letters," she said. "All this time you've been in the hole, I've been reading these letters. I've been writing a journal to you. I bought those (expletive) CDs and I've been listening to them at night. I've been crying on my pillow ... . And then you went and betrayed me."

The inmate said others had told him that the guard claimed he had raped her. She then urged him to send a letter to Fitchburg police to say that he had lied about the relationship and to say that he made it up because they were threatening him.

Acting on a search warrant last month, police collected DNA and a handwriting sample from the guard to compare to letters sent to the inmate while at Oakhill.

The guard's attorney, Gerald Mowris, said he has not yet seen the documents collected at his client's home and stressed that until proven otherwise, she is innocent.

The woman would be the third female guard at Oakhill charged with having sex with inmates, along with a kitchen worker who also was charged with sexual assault for a relationship with an inmate.