ABCNEWS.com http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/ texas_jail_021121.html ABCNEWS Thursday November 21, 4:12pm ET 888888888888888888888 888888888888888888888 When Lynn Sanders, a single working mother, ended up in jail after telling a judge she did not have enough money to pay off a traffic fine, she thought things were pretty bad. But inside the jail — in Haltom City, Texas, just outside Fort Worth — she says things got worse. Sanders, 23, says one of the guards, Clint Wade Weaver, approached her one night after the other guards had gone home and asked her to perform oral sex on him.

"I explained that I had never done that before," Sanders told Primetime. But, she said, Weaver told her that if she refused he would file charges against her for propositioning a guard, and that if she agreed he would release her before her five-day sentence was up.

Intimidated by Weaver's 6-foot, 220-pound presence and desperate to see her two children again, she did what he asked, she says. "I said yes, because I was scared, and I had two small children at home with my mom. I was the only one they had, so I agreed," she said, tearing up as she spoke.

Sanders, who was in jail for failing to pay a fine for driving without insurance, later found out that at the very moment Weaver was making his alleged proposition, her parents were waiting steps away in the jail lobby.

According to other women who have spent time in the jail, Sanders' experience was not unusual. She and seven other former inmates, all jailed for minor offenses like traffic violations, have brought federal civil rights lawsuits against Haltom City, alleging that other guards at the jail knew about Weaver's alleged abuse and did nothing to stop it. The lawsuits allege that "sexual victimization" was "severe and pervasive" at the jail, and that "numerous more officers and jailers knew of the activity but remained silent." The lawsuits cover incidents alleged to have taken place between June 2000 and March 2001. The city denies the charges.

Other Allegations of Abuse

Another plaintiff, a 26-year-old businesswoman called Kaye, who asked that her last name not be used, also claims that Weaver asked her for oral sex in return for an early release. "He told me, 'Look, I'll do you a favor if you do me a favor,'" she told Primetime. She said she accepted Weaver's offer because she was afraid to refuse.

Another alleged victim, a mother of three named Atara, said that Weaver demanded that she strip in front of him and fondle herself, and give him oral sex in the guards' break room. All the while, she said, her thoughts were on getting out of jail so she could get back to her children. "You have to make a choice: between these innocent angels who you have to take care of, and nobody knows where you are," she told Primetime in tears. "Is that a choice? Am I wrong for making the choice I had to make for my children?"

Atara also said she heard an account of a female inmate give an exotic dancing show for Weaver and a police officer in the jail's control room.

Enforced Nudity Alleged

The plaintiffs also say Weaver used to stare at them when they were undressing. One plaintiff, who was 17 when she was sent to the jail for cutting classes, says Weaver told her to remove her bra, saying she might be hiding something in it. Another officer walked in as she stood there half-naked, she said, but turned around and "walked right back out" without saying anything.

The women say that guards routinely ordered them to completely remove their jailhouse jumpsuits when they used the toilet in their cells — in full view of cameras that Weaver and other guards could monitor from the control room. "You could see everything," said Margie, who served time in the jail for unpaid traffic tickets when she was 17.

The lawsuit says that other guards must have been aware of Weaver's alleged early releases because the missing women would have been picked up in head counts.

Jail Institutes Changes

Weaver resigned from the jail's staff in April while the department conducted an internal investigation. He pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of official oppression of a female inmate and was sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. Earlier this month, he was indicted on three additional charges, including second-degree sexual assault. He has not yet entered a plea.

Weaver declined to talk to Primetime, but his father insisted his son had nothing to do with the sexual abuse and said the alleged victims were just trying to make money from the lawsuit.

Haltom City Manager Richard Torres told Primetime that state police investigators are investigating the allegations, but that he believes the women's allegations are "probably not all truthful." He said he had heard of the alleged exotic dancing incident, but said it sounded to him as though the woman was "enjoying herself, probably entertaining these gentlemen." He said, though, that it would be "totally inappropriate" for officers to allow such behavior and said that one guard and one police officer had been reprimanded.

Torres also said the women could have alerted jail supervisors about the alleged abuse by filling out a complaint form in the jail lobby. But when Primetime visited the jail, there were no complaint forms visible. Some women said they would have been too scared to fill them out anyway.

Since the women's allegations came to light, the jail has instituted several changes:
  Male guards are no longer allowed to watch female inmates undressing.
  Female inmates now wear two-piece uniforms that allow more privacy than the one-piece jumpsuits.
  Paperwork procedures have been changed to ensure that more than one official decides when an inmate is released.
  Both male and female inmates are now allowed to continue wearing their underwear rather than having to remove it for security reasons.
  A video camera has been installed in the guards' break room.