A former prison guard is now behind bars himself, after using his position to force sexual encounters with an inmate.
Marlin Freeman, of Ramey, pleaded no contest to institutional sexual assault. On Thursday, a judge sentenced the 55-year-old man to 11 ½ to 23 ½ months in the Centre County Correctional Facility.
Freeman worked as a Corrections Officer at Rockview state prison for 21 years. He would take a particular inmate into the prison chapel and force him to perform oral sex. This happened on almost a monthly basis for several years.
Prosecutors claim Freeman would threaten the inmate with false misconduct reports if he objected and forced the inmate to destroy DNA left from the encounters.
In April 2012, the inmate was able to obtain a DNA sample which was sent to law enforcement authorities. Freeman was arrested after the state police crime lab confirmed the sample contained Freeman’s DNA.
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