Former Grant County, Kentucky, Detention Center Supervisor Pleads Guilty to Civil...

Former Grant County, Kentucky, Detention Center Supervisor Pleads Guilty to
Civil Rights Crime

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Clinton Shawn Sydnor, a former
sergeant at the Grant County, Ky., Detention Center, pleaded guilty in federal
court today to conspiring with deputy jailers and with inmates to violate the
civil rights of a man who was in his custody at the jail. Today's plea was
jointly announced by Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for
the Civil Rights Division, together with James A. Zerhusen, Acting U.S.
Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, and Tracy Reinhold, Special
Agent in Charge of the Louisville Division of the FBI. Sydnor faces a
possible sentence of 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 8, 2008.

Sydnor was initially charged in a federal indictment that also charged deputy
jailers Wesley Lanham and Shawn Freeman. The indictment charged all three
defendants with conspiring to violate the civil rights of the man in their
custody; with violating the man's rights; and with obstructing justice in
connection with the investigation of those crimes. Sydnor was also charged
with additional counts of obstruction for falsifying records in a federal
investigation and for tampering with a witness.

According to the original indictment, on Feb. 14, 2003, Sydnor, Lanham and
Freeman, along with other deputies not named in the indictment, while on
official duty, taunted an 18-year-old high school student who had been brought
to the detention center on a speeding charge. The deputies teased the
teenager about his physical appearance. The indictment alleges that the
defendants then solicited a group of convicted felons housed in a general
population cell to intimidate the teenager. The indictment further alleges
that the officers then left the teenager in the cell with the inmates, who
proceeded to sexually assault the teen.

Sydnor admitted in court today that he conspired with the other officers and
with the inmates to violate the teenager's civil rights, that he knew the teen
faced a threat from the other inmates, and that he deliberately ignored that
danger. Sydnor also admitted that he had other officers falsify reports
relating to the incident.

Lanham and Freeman have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them and
will face trial beginning on Aug. 11, 2008.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Litigation Counsel Kristy L. Parker
and Trial Attorney Forrest Christian of the Criminal Section of the Justice
Department's Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the
Eastern District of Kentucky.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, +1-202-514-2007, TDD,
+1-202-514-1888