Former Boston correctional officer raped inmate at facility, DA says

A former Boston correctional officer has been accused of raping an inmate at a jail in the city this summer.

William Cooper, 37, of Boston was charged with one count of rape of a person in custody and arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

Cooper was ordered held on a $5,000 bail, and he is due back in court on Oct. 17. Under Massachusetts law, people who are in custody are incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse.

Cooper is accused of engaging in sexual intercourse with a South Bay House of Correction inmate while he was on-duty on July 7, prosecutors said. He had only been employed at South Bay for two months at the time.

The encounter — which lasted for 10 minutes — happened in an empty caseworker’s office located nearby the prisoner’s cell. Cooper taped trash bags to the office window before meeting with the prisoner, according to prosecutors.

There was a third rave complaint made the day after, prosecutors said, and an investigation was opened by Suffolk sheriff’s investigators.

The inmate initially denied having any sexual contact with Cooper in the office, but later described the sexual act after they were moved out of the South Bay facility and were “no longer fearing retribution,” prosecutors said.

Cooper denied being in the office with the prisoner to investigators, which prosecutors say is disproved by surveillance video in the facility.

“Detainees are in custody for specific reasons, but they are certainly not there to be victimized by the persons guarding them,” said Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden.