Jail deputy, 30, arrested for allegedly kissing and fondling two inmates
Booking records show a 30-year-old detention deputy has been arrested on suspicion of eight counts of unlawful sexual relations with an inmate for kissing and fondling two women in custody at the Sedgwick County Jail.
Timothy R. Baskerville was booked into jail at 8:20 p.m. Monday. He had a $50,000 bond amount listed Tuesday on the jail’s searchable online inmate log.
Sheriff Jeff Easter on Tuesday described the alleged illegal contact as “unwarranted advances” on the women targeted.
“There has not been any information that has been given to us that there was any sexual intercourse, any sodomy, anything like that in nature,” Easter said during an afternoon news conference.
“It was kissing and fondling, which is also illegal,” he said. State law prohibits any romantic or sexual contact between jail or prison employees and inmates, even in cases where it would otherwise be considered consensual.
Baskerville was jailed Monday after investigators had enough evidence to arrest him, Easter said.
He remains in the jail’s custody, in the facility’s clinic, but has not been formally charged by prosecutors. Easter said his staff will present the case to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office sometime in the future. Baskerville is also the subject of an internal investigation, Easter said.
The alleged contacted occurred between April 23 and June 1, but the inmates didn’t come forward until weeks later, Easter said.
The first woman reported one incident to the Sheriff’s Office on June 25, resulting in Baskerville being placed on leave.
Authorities learned the second woman had allegedly experienced similar treatment during their investigation of the initial complaint.
“As soon as one inmate came to us and told us about an incident that she had experienced, we immediately started the criminal investigation,” Easter said.
“During that criminal investigation, we located another female inmate that also, after talking to her for quite some time, came forward with the additional seven counts that he has been arrested for.”
Easter said his office is reviewing surveillance video at the jail to further verify the inmates’ reports but noted that cameras only show what goes on in the facility’s common areas, not what happens inside an inmate’s cell.
“We cannot place video inside of a person’s cell. Legally we can’t do that,” he said, adding that his office is looking through “a lot of video to corroborate the information that we received ... to show that the suspect deputy did actually enter the cell at that time.”
Baskerville has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since Jan. 28, 2019, county spokeswoman Kate Flavin said. He is among several Sheriff’s Office employees jailed in recent months for crimes ranging from driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol to theft and making a false police report.
Easter on Tuesday said the arrests were troubling.
“Every one of them is alarming ... because they involve people who wear this badge,” he said. “The fact of the matter is we don’t tolerate it. So once we find out about it then we conduct a full investigation both internally and criminally.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2020 at 10:45 AM.
