Another Delco prison worker faces charges

A K-9 officer at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility was charged yesterday with multiple counts of institutional sexual assault for allegedly taking an inmate to a nearby grist mill for sex in his pickup truck, Delaware County authorities said.

Michael Waters, 37, an employee of the GEO Group, the Florida-based company that runs the county prison, admitted to having oral and vaginal sex with the female work-release inmate, according to the criminal complaint.

The 25-year-old woman told detectives on Friday that Waters, who became a K-9 officer last year, would pick her up from her job at McDonald's and take her to the historic Newlin Grist Mill near the prison or to the parking lot of the Springfield Mall for sex.

Such relationships between guards and inmates are prohibited by law - even if the sex is consensual.

"That is a felony of the third degree," said John Reilly, the prison's acting superintendent. "It could be wholly consensual, it could be a product of deep and abiding love, and it is still the crime of institutional sexual assault."

Waters, of Clifton Heights, was hit with four counts of that crime yesterday and is expected to be arraigned today in Concord District Court. His wife answered the door yesterday at their Church Street home but declined comment.

"It's a tragic lapse of judgment," Reilly said of Waters' actions.

Other GEO employees at the Delaware County prison have experienced similar lapses in recent years.

The jail's former work-release supervisor, for instance, is registered as a Megan's Law sex offender. Joseph Henderson, of the Wissinoming section of Philadelphia, is currently on probation after pleading guilty in 2006 to sexually assaulting a female inmate while transporting her back to prison.

Former guard Henry Myers pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Myers, also of Philadelphia, was indicted in 2005 for casing banks in three armed heists and was sentenced to three years in prison.

In 2004, a GEO lieutenant at the county prison was fired for beating an inmate "to a pulp," as the then-warden put it, and two other guards received probationary sentences after an inmate claimed in 2002 that they handcuffed him, pummeled him with a basketball and pulled his pants down.

Reilly acknowledged that some GEO employees have previously had trouble staying out of jail themselves, but said that he could not recall any new incidents over the past couple of years - aside from Waters'.

"GEO did the right thing" by calling county detectives concerning Waters, said Reilly, whose office supervises the company's performance on behalf of the Delaware County government.

Reilly said that Waters resigned his position Friday. GEO spokesman Pablo Paez declined to comment, but confirmed that Waters is no longer working at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility.

The county recently agreed to an $80 million contract extension under which GEO, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., will continue operating the 1,833-bed prison through 2009. *