ST. LOUIS  •   A former ºüÀêÊÓƵ jailer was sentenced Thursday to 3½ years in prison for having sex with a female inmate inside the Justice Center in 2009.
Tony West, 36, of the 5300 block of ºüÀêÊÓƵ Avenue, was on a charge of sexual contact with a prisoner, a felony.
In sentencing West, Circuit Court Judge John Garvey followed the recommendations of both the jury and prosecutors. West faced a maximum four-year sentence based on the charge.
Garvey called the crime "disgusting" because it involved a person in power preying on the vulnerable. He told West he considered it rape.Â
"You used confinement, you used your uniform, you used your authority," he said. "You almost roamed around those halls like a shark, like a predator . . . it's like some type of bad Nazi movie."
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The inmate, 29, was jailed in ºüÀêÊÓƵ on a bad check charge on Jan. 9, 2009. She accused West of using his authority to pressure her into sex in a second-floor janitor’s closet after he told her he could make her charges go away.
The woman reported the incident to Cape Girardeau authorities the same day she was transferred to a jail there in a different case. One ºüÀêÊÓƵ jailer testified he was fired because he knew about the sex and didn’t report it.
West had denied the accusations, and his lawyer, John Washington, argued there was no proof the sex occurred but there was reason to believe the woman was lying. He suggested she was motivated by money.
On Friday, Assistant Circuit Attorney Natalie Warner said the woman has since moved from ºüÀêÊÓƵ because she is afraid of all law enforcement here. The woman attended the hearing, but declined to give her own statement to the court. The Post-Dispatch does not identify victims in sex crime cases.
Washington asked the judge to take into consideration West's desire to take care of his wife and young children. He called him a good man who made a bad decision.Â
Garvey said if West wanted to do the right thing by his family he needed to acknowledge his crime.
West's wife had testified at trial that she used to work at the jail and sometimes she and her husband had sex in the same closet. She said she believed he was innocent.Â