By james art Less than two months after the Durham County Sheriff’s Office indicted two former officers, accusing them of having sex with an inmate, he has charged two other officers with separate crimes involving jail inmates.
One of the defendants is a detention officer; the other is a contract worker, the Durham County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Former Sergeant Nicole Locke, 45, of Raleigh, was arrested Friday on multiple charges. Among them: two counts of criminal conspiracy; one count of providing telephone/electronics to inmates, also a misdemeanor; and one count of criminal conspiracy.
In Locke’s arrest warrant, she is accused of providing cellphone components to an inmate at the Durham County Jail at 219 S Mangum Street in August.
The inmate identified is the same one two former detention center workers are accused of having sex with in 2023. The man is in jail on several charges, including murder, according to court and prison records.
The N&O did not publicly identify the inmate.
Locke was released on $15,000 unsecured bail, the release said.
Earlier this month, on Oct. 7, Brianna Ashley Bowie, 31, of Durham, a nurse employed to work at the jail, was charged with one felony count of conspiracy to sell a Schedule VI controlled substance.
In Bowie’s arrest warrant, she is accused of bringing marijuana to an inmate in September. She is also charged with conspiring with the inmate to sell prison contraband. The prisoner is not the same as the one identified in Locke’s case.
Bowie’s bail was set at $5,000 unsecured.
Locke and Bowie are no longer affiliated with the office, Durham County Sheriff Clarence Burkhead said.
“I will not support any activity that conflicts with our mission in the care and custody of the people who are incarcerated in the Durham County Detention Center,” he said in a statement. “Whether it’s a Sheriff’s Office employee or a contractor; we must hold everyone who interacts with our residents to a high standard.”
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In September, the sheriff’s office charged two former workers with having sex with the same inmate at the jail last year.
The confrontation was not violent, according to the sheriff’s office, but consent is not a legal defense, The News & Observer reported.
The charges are part of an “ongoing investigation into alleged sexual activity at the Durham County Detention Center,” the sheriff’s office said at the time.