A sheriff in a small town in Oklahoma has been charged with using female inmates as sex slaves, court records showed.
The allegations against Sheriff Michael Burgess, who resigned after 35 charges of rape, bribery, kidnapping and subordination of perjury were filed on Wednesday, show a disturbing pattern of using his badge to force vulnerable women to do his bidding.
The married 55-year-old grandfather is accused of forcing inmates and convicts to have sex with him in his office, his cruiser, their homes, hotels and even the house of a friend who was away on vacation.
Burgess, who had been in charge of the Custer County sheriff department since 1994, is also accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a female deputy over the course of three years, including putting his hand inside her trousers when she was being fitted for her first uniform.
One woman said the abuse began when she was being transported to jail and continued upon her release, when Burgess would knock on the door of the hotel where she was staying to announce a “booty call.” During one of these encounters, he allegedly handcuffed her and sexually assaulted her with a flashlight.
Another said she had her jail sentence cut by six months in exchange for performing sexual favors in his office. A third woman was forced to have sex with him two or three times a week for more than a year in order to stay in a drug treatment program that would keep her out of jail, prosecutors allege.
During this time, Burgess forced her to break up with her boyfriend and coached her to make up lies of abuse in order to get a restraining order against him. When the woman failed a drug test in May of last year, she told officials that she “had been having sex with Sheriff Burgess and that he had promised her that he would protect her and keep her from going back to jail.”
Burgess is accused of calling the woman’s cousin that evening, who was also in drug treatment, and asking her to break into the woman’s house and steal any DNA evidence that could prove that they had been having sex. He allegedly promised to get her brother out of prison if she succeeded.
A special prosecutor was called in to investigate the woman’s accusations and a dozen inmates filed a civil suit last year.
The details of the criminal complaint filed on Wednesday nonetheless shocked the small department, said undersheriff Kenneth Tidwell.
“He was always very good to us as an employer and we were all friends,” Tidwell said.
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