HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — It was after midnight when she crept down the narrow, dimly lit stairs carrying a bag of dirty laundry. She crossed under a patchwork of pipes and ducts to the far back corner of the basement, as she had done many times before. That, she said, is where correctional officer James Widen was waiting for her.
He had just called her name over the intercom, telling her to report to the work release center’s laundry room. So April Youst rose from her bunk, careful not to wake the other incarcerated women sleeping in the dorm.
When she got downstairs, she said Widen offered to save her some money by opening “the cage,” a little room with free washers and dryers reserved for new prisoners who hadn’t yet started their jobs.
She gratefully stepped inside. And then, she said, everything changed.
“He’s rubbing himself,” she said, while reminding her of all the little favors he’d done for her. “He was like … ‘It’s time to pay.’”
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