Jury acquits Ex-CRC employee of sexual assault charges

CASPER, Wyo. — A jury on Thursday found a former counselor at the Casper Reentry Center not guilty of two charges of sexual assault of a former inmate.

Defendant Justice Jean Hayes cried upon hearing the verdict and hugged her attorney Tim Cotton after Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking dismissed the jury and adjourned the hearing.

Cotton and Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Brandon Rosty declined to comment after the verdict.

The trial ended after two days of testimony and the jury deliberated for about five hours.

Hayes, born in 1995, was charged with sexual assault in the second degree — sexual intrusion — punishable by two to 20 years’ imprisonment; as well as third-degree sexual assault — sexual contact — punishable by up to 15 years’ imprisonment.

According to the Jan. 21, 2024, affidavit supporting the charging documents, the case began when a Natrona County Sheriff’s Office investigations sergeant learned in December 2023 that the Wyoming Department of Corrections Investigative Services Unit had received a report about an alleged inappropriate relationship between Hayes and inmate Shawn Duffy in August and September 2022.

Hayes was hired on May 16, 2022, about the same time Duffy was admitted to the CRC.

Hayes was among five or six substance abuse counselors at that time, and Duffy was assigned to her for counseling. Duffy, according to the prosecution, defense and a transcript of a recent sentencing, had a traumatic childhood and was a career criminal.

In addition to group sessions, substance abuse counselors have one-on-one sessions with inmates twice a month, former CRC supervisor Kellie Doran said during her testimony on Monday.

However, sometimes the counselors — who often have 12–20 cases at any given time — are only able to have one such session a month, Doran said.

Those one-on-one sessions in a counselor’s office are accompanied by another counselor for the safety and security of the staff and inmates, she added.

However, she said the two had been caught alone together in her office despite CRC’s policy against that. Hayes was reminded twice that she could not do that. On Sept 14, Hayes’s supervisors removed Duffy from her case load and told her not to have any contact with him.

On Sept. 21, a CRC staff member told Doran that Hayes and Duffy were seen having a “‘serious conversation'” in a hallway, according to the affidavit.

Meanwhile on that day, Doran began listening to Duffy’s recorded phone calls — a total of 49 — some of which recorded them professing their love for each other and some with explicit sexual contact including phone sex.

Hayes quit the next day.

Duffy later was released on parole.

In April 2023, they were living together when he assaulted and strangled her. He later pleaded guilty and in October was sentenced to a seven- to 10-year prison term.

On May 2, 2023, an investigator with the Wyoming Department of Corrections reported the content of the phone calls to a Natrona County Sheriff’s sergeant.

That same day, Duffy reported being sexually assaulted by Hayes when she worked at the CRC.

The next day, Duffy told the investigator about the assault.

On May 4, 2023, the investigator interviewed Hayes, who initially denied every having any sexual contact with Duffy. She later said that they had hugged each other once and kissed each other maybe between 10 and 15 times.

During the trial, the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office put Doran, the investigator, Duffy, an expert on the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and others on the stand, who told the jury much of what was recounted in the court documents.

Doran said in her testimony that inmates cannot consent to sex because they are under the authority of CRC staff.

In his cross-examination, Hayes’s attorney, Tim Cotton, asked Doran if she ever saw any sexual contact between Hayes and Duffy, and Doran said she didn’t.

During closing arguments Thursday morning, Rosty laid out the evidence including Duffy’s testimony.

Cotton then perforated just about everything the prosecution presented.

He said the prosecution was conflating the CRC’s policies with the law, and the case was “much ado about nothing.”

Doran talked about policy violations, but not illegal activity, he said.

None of the prosecution’s witnesses ever saw any intimate contact, whether intercourse, kissing or sexual touching between Duffy and Hayes, Cotton said.

The only allegation of violating the law, he added, was from Duffy, a hardened criminal who contradicted himself and lied a lot including when he said “‘everybody knew'” about the relationship. Likewise, Duffy told law enforcement that Hayes gave herself the injuries during the strangulation about that same time. The only hitting Duffy said he did was with a pillow, Cotton added.

In fact, the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office didn’t interview Duffy until after he reported the alleged sexual assault in April 2023, long after Hayes quit working for the CRC, Cotton said.

The Sheriff’s Office, he added, was covering its backside by the way it conducted the investigation.

The state had the burden to show beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed, he said, and its only witness to sexual encounters lied on the stand.