Fentress County Sheriff Charles Cravens pleaded guilty back in April after the 47-year-old used his role to have sex with inmates
A Tennessee sheriff has been jailed for almost three years after pleading guilty to having sex with prison inmates under his supervision.
Fentress County Sheriff Charles Cravens pleaded guilty back in April after the 47-year-old was accused of summoning a jailed female inmate to his office for sex.
On other occasions the sheriff also drove two female inmates to a trailer where he engaged in a threesome with them.
On Wednesday, he stood before U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger in Nashville and asked for her mercy.
‘I do take responsibility for my actions,’ he told the judge, hands folded behind his Wranglers.
‘What I done, I done it myself.’
Cravens’ lawyer, Alex Little, said his remarks showed that showed Cravens took responsibility for his actions.
‘The person standing before you is not an evil person,’ Little told the judge. ‘He made a mistake.’
The former sheriff would regularly summon female inmates to his office and car for sex. The Fentress County Jail is seen in the above stock image
Trauger sentenced him to the federal prison term for three counts of honest services wire fraud and a count of deprivation of rights. The prison time will be followed by two years of supervised release.
Court papers as reported by The Tennesseasn reveal the sordid details of the sheriff’s antics at the 150-person jail he was supposed to be supervising.
After having a threesome with two inmates, he then continued to have a sexual relationship with them until they were released.
The sheriff also had sex with a third inmate in his car and participated in the beating of a male inmate.
During his time as a senior member of jail staff, Cravens was able to grant inmates special favors in exchange for their willingness to have sex with him and even personally chauffeured the inmates on trips to visit their relatives.
The sherrif would also provide them with special favors such as money, cigarettes and even food in exchange for sex. He will be going to jail in October
Assistant U.S. Attorney Katy Risinger portrayed Cravens as the most powerful man in the county, saying he coerced the women into having sex with him and took advantage of his position of authority.
‘The women here could not consent, not in any meaningful way,’ she said. ‘They are reliant on defendant for their safety, their food, their clothing. … Their well-being.’
Cravens allowed the inmates that he slept with to smoke cigarettes outside, a privilege not granted to others in the jail and also gave money money to relatives of inmates so that they could in turn deposit the cash into jail inmate accounts.
He also bought them food in exchange for sex. Trauger said those acts could not be characterized as ‘anything but horrendous.’
At least two of the women are suing Cravens and the county in a civil case filed earlier this week, seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
Investigators found that the inmates had telephoned Cravens by dialing his personal cell phone number hundreds of times.
Cravens also kicked another inmate and placed him in a headlock while he was handcuffed by another correctional officer.
Cravens was the top law enforcement officer in the rural Tennessee county, which sits north of Crossville and has a population of about 18,000.
In April, he announced his resignation amid an FBI and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe.