In November, Hopkins pled guilty to felony charges including six counts of sexual contact with an inmate by a law enforcement officer, and two counts of official misconduct. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 23, the lawsuit says.
Raybin told NewsChannel 5 that Fowler “wants people to know what has happened to her and wants to make other women feel empowered that they can speak out, too.”
Hopkins is listed on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry, state records show. Under offenses, the listing says “sexual contact with inmates.”
The former corrections officer was indicted in June of last year, following a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe.
Hopkins carried out the alleged assaults by following the same pattern: cornering Fowler while she was alone in the jail’s library at night, the complaint says.
The guard started at Moore County’s jail in Lynchburg in early 2017, but hadn’t completed his required training, court papers allege.
Around the same time, Fowler achieved “trustee” status because of her good behavior. This gave her additional freedoms, including a job washing clothes and jail credits to reduce her sentence, the lawsuit says.
Yet after she reported the alleged rapes, she was transferred to a state prison and lost her jail credits—leading to a longer sentence.
The officer first assaulted Fowler one night in February, when she was the only inmate working the laundry shift, the complaint claims. At the time, she waited in the library across the hall for the machines to finish the loads.