Probation ordered for former Sedgwick County Jail deputy who groped female inmates
A 33-year-old former detention deputy has been ordered to serve one year of probation for groping female inmates while he was working in the Sedgwick County Jail, according to Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dan Dillon and court records.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter in an October 2020 press conference said Timothy R. Baskerville had targeted and subjected two female inmates to “unwarranted advances” that included kissing and fondling while he was on duty. Baskerville used different methods to avoid drawing suspicion to his illegal relationships, including using the jail’s electronic messaging system to correspond with an inmate so no one would see them talking in person, convincing an inmate to fake plumbing issues so he could go into her cell and “make out,” and trying to get an inmate to be a pod worker “so they could go into the janitor’s closet together and have sex,” according to an affidavit released by the court.
Video surveillance from inside the jail showed Baskerville going into inmate cells on various dates.
An email address Baskerville used to correspond over the jail’s electronic messaging system helped investigators confirm a report about his illegal conduct; the address contained the names of characters in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes novel “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” an “obvious connection” to the deputy’s last name, the affidavit says.
Baskerville told the investigators who interviewed him that he contacted the inmate electronically because he was having marital trouble. Easter has said the illegal contact happened between April and June of 2020, but the inmates didn’t come forward until weeks later.
State law prohibits any romantic or sexual contact between jail or prison employees and inmates.
Baskerville was arrested in October 2020 and charged with eight counts of unlawful sexual relations. He pleaded guilty in November to two felony counts of interference with law enforcement and six misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, court records show.
Sedgwick County District Judge Kevin Mark Smith imposed the probation sentence Friday morning, according to a note in court records. Baskerville’s sentence carries an underlying prison term of 38 months, which he could be ordered to serve if he fails to abide by the conditions of his probation.
