Two years ago a jury found that a former Louisiana State Penitentiary guard sexually assaulted an Angola inmate in 2014 and ordered him to pay the ex-inmate $750,000.
A federal appeals court has now affirmed the verdict and damages, calling the conduct of former corrections officer Tyler Holliday “deplorable.”
An attorney for the ex-inmate said Tuesday his client has waited eight years for justice, "and it has finally come."
"He may have been a prisoner, but rape was not part of his sentence," lawyer Joe Long said. "The Court of Appeal has spoken. The jury has spoken. No one should fear rape from his jailer."
The inmate alleged in a lawsuit that he filed a complaint with Angola officials on March 13, 2014, but wasn't moved to another state prison until March 24, 2014. He claimed Holliday forced him to perform oral sex on him seven times in a prison office, the last time on March 22, 2014 — after his complaint was filed.
Holliday argued in his appeal that there was no evidence to support the verdict of the Baton Rouge federal civil court jury, and that the damages awarded by the jurors were excessive.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected both of those arguments late last week.
Holliday claims, among other things, that certain timecards showed he was elsewhere at the time and place of the sexual assaults.
"Testimony from (the inmate), Holliday, and the warden of the prison shows that Holliday could have clocked in at various locations within the prison and still easily returned to the office within the alleged timeframe," the 5th Circuit panel wrote.
The panel added that the inmate identified "numerous pieces of evidence tending to show that Holliday had engaged in other sexually inappropriate acts" in the Falcon office. The inmate was housed in the prison's Falcon unit.
As for the damages that the jury ordered Holliday to pay the man, Holliday argues the inmate did not seek mental health counseling in the immediate aftermath of the assaults and that he "was fine" when he was finally released from prison in 2016.
The appellate court panel, however, said the man was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder "after the deplorable events and was treated by a licensed social worker."
Holliday was ordered to pay the former inmate $500,000 in compensatory damages and an additional $250,000 in punitive damages, which are meant to punish conduct.
The 5th Circuit panel said the $750,000 award "is in line with that of similar cases."
The jury also decided the former inmate did not prove that then-Angola Warden Burl Cain and two other wardens at the prison failed to protect him from substantial risk of harm.
Holliday never faced criminal charges in the incidents. An internal review by corrections officials of the inmate's allegations found them to be unsubstantiated.
The Advocate has not identified the former inmate because he is a sexual assault victim. The man, who was serving time at Angola on a manslaughter conviction, is now on parole and no longer in state custody.
Holliday resigned on March 26, 2014, amid the prison's probe into the inmate's claims and was arrested three months later, but not based on the prisoner's allegations. He was booked on malfeasance in office after telling West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's deputies he had masturbated at work, an arrest report stated.
Holliday was not formally charged with a crime but was allowed to enter a pretrial program designed for first-time offenders of nonviolent crimes that does not require an admission of guilt for eligibility purposes.