Trial begins for ex-CRC employee accused of sexual relationship with inmate

CASPER, Wyo. — No matter if they call it love, it’s not possible for an inmate and a staff member of a correctional facility to have a consensual sexual relationship, an official with the Casper Reentry Center said Tuesday.

“When you’re an inmate, you can’t consent,” Kelli Doran told the jury in Natrona County District Court, 115 N. Center St.

“There’s a huge power differential,” said Doran, the CRC’s deputy director of treatment, during testimony on the first day of a trial of a former employee charged with having a sexual relationship with a male inmate in 2022.

Justice Jean Hayes, born in 1995, is 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.

Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking is presiding over the trial, which is scheduled for three days. The 12-person jury with two alternates consists of seven women and seven men. The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

After the jury selection Tuesday morning, the state called Doran, its first witness.

Feelings and actions are beside the point because virtually everything for an inmate is involuntary from getting up in the morning to going to bed — and all are under the authority of CRC staff, she said during questioning by Natrona County Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Grill.

Doran explained how the Casper Reentry Center works as a correctional facility contracted with the Wyoming Department of Corrections, its living quarters, its substance abuse treatment programs and the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The PREA is intended to prevent sexual harassment and abuse of inmates, said Doran, who supervised Hayes’s supervisor.

Hayes was hired on May 16, 2022, about the same time the victim, identified as S.D., was admitted to the CRC, she said.

Hayes was among five or six substance abuse counselors at that time, and S.D. was assigned to her for counseling.

In addition to group sessions, substance abuse counselors have one-on-one sessions with inmates twice a month, Doran said. However, sometimes the counselors — who often have 12–20 cases at any given time — are only able to have one such session a month, she noted.

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, Doran said.

By August, though, Hayes was having more than the usual contact with inmate S.D., she said.

In September, Hayes went to Doran because she was concerned about rumors of a relationship between herself and S.D. and wanted them stopped. At that time, S.D. was removed from Hayes’s case load and Hayes was told to have no contact with him, Doran said.

At one point, a security camera caught Hayes and S.D. talking in a hallway; Doran confronted Hayes on Sept. 21 and Hayes angrily responded, “you can consider this my notice” of resignation, Doran said.

Meanwhile, Doran said she began reviewing between 40 and 50 calls from S.D. to Hayes, with some of the conversations containing sexual content.

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

Cotton also noted that the calls from S.D. to Hayes continued after Sept. 21, but the CRC’s policies at that point were moot. Doran agreed, but said that contact still violated policies regarding Hayes’s license as a counselor.

According to the Jan. 21, 2024, affidavit accompanying the criminal charges, the case with the District Attorney’s Office started in December 2023, when a Natrona County Sheriff’s Office investigations sergeant learned that the Wyoming Wyoming Department of Corrections Investigative Services Unit had received a report about Hayes’s alleged inappropriate relationship.