Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex has produced several scandals in recent years
Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex, a large state prison 88 miles east of Lexington, has been a recurring source of scandal in recent years.
Here are some details:
▪ It was built on 157 acres of land in Morgan County for $72.9 million. The two phases of construction, including nine buildings, were finished in 1986 and 1991.
▪ It’s a medium-security prison, but a 90-bed minimum security unit sits outside the fence.
▪ The inmate population this week is 1,815, with 1,914 beds available.
▪ Inmates range in age from 20 to 79. Their average stay is 31 months.
▪ The prison employs 381 people who have contact with inmates, primarily correctional officers.
▪ The acting warden is Shawn McKenzie.
▪ In 2022, the Morgan County grand jury indicted the prison’s chaplain, Todd Steven Boyce, on charges of sodomy and sexual abuse. A jury trial is scheduled for August.
In a related lawsuit filed in 2023 in U.S. District Court, Boyce’s alleged victim, an inmate at the prison, claims that prison officials knew the chaplain was sexually molesting inmates, but they made no effort to stop him.
▪ In March, six of the prison’s former correctional officers, who pleaded guilty either to assaulting a handcuffed, shackled inmate in the showers in 2018 or trying to cover up that assault, were sentenced to prison in a criminal case brought by the U.S. Justice Department.
A seventh officer involved in that case, former Sgt. Eric Nantell, separately was convicted by a jury in February on one count of deprivation of civil rights, two counts of obstruction for misleading state investigators and one count of making false statements to a special agent of the FBI. His sentencing is scheduled for June 10.
▪ Also in March, seven inmates at the prison filed a civil-rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Warden James David Green and four current or former correctional officers. The inmates said the guards Tasered them in 2023 because they flunked drug tests, an allegation supported by a Department of Corrections investigation.
Three of the four officers named in the suit were fired and subsequently convicted of misdemeanor charges of assault or official misconduct.
‘Breach of trust.’ Former Kentucky prison officers sentenced over assault on inmate.
KY prison guards Tasered inmates who failed drug tests, then lied about it
