Ex-Geiger guard arrested in sex case

A former Geiger Corrections Center guard has been arrested on a charge that he forced a female inmate to have sex in January.

Bernard R. Baumgardner, 60, of 2004 W. Kiernan Ave., was booked into jail Thursday evening on a charge of first-degree custodial sexual misconduct. He quickly posted a $10,000 bond and was released. No court date had been set Friday.

The Class C felony charge doesn’t require prosecutors to prove the alleged victim didn’t consent to sex with Baumgardner. Any sex between a corrections officer and an inmate under his control is illegal.

According to court documents, the alleged victim told authorities that Baumgardner had told her she was sexy and that he “wanted” her, and he would touch her hand in a lingering fashion when handing her passes to allow her to move around the minimum-security corrections center. Then, on Jan. 25, she said, he isolated her in a recreation building, undressed her and forced her to have sex on a table by threatening to have her transferred to another jail.

The woman was a federal prisoner being held in the Spokane County facility under contract with the federal government.

Court documents say another woman, also a federal prisoner, noticed Baumgardner had been paying more attention to the alleged victim before the alleged rape. The alleged victim told the other inmate about the alleged assault shortly after it happened, and that inmate told a counselor.

According to court documents, the alleged victim’s statements were supported by physical evidence. Also, another Geiger employee reported seeing Baumgardner take the alleged victim to the recreation building at the time in question and remain there about 20 minutes.

The woman was a trusty who had been assigned to clean the unoccupied building, corrections center director Leon Long told The Spokesman-Review in January.

Baumgardner, who had been on the payroll about 18 years, resigned a day after the alleged assault.