Chatham County Sheriff’s Deputy Samuel Joshua Richardson was sentenced to two years in prison for charges of sexual assault by a person with supervisory or disciplinary authority, which is a felony offense.
The encounters generally took place in a storage closet.
“I am pleased that this former deputy was sentenced to two years of jail time,” Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher said about his former employee of seven years.
“His firing and charges that followed demonstrate our complete intolerance for this sort of behavior and his sentencing demonstrates the severity of this crime.”
Richardson was allegedly found to be having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female, Catham County, inmate in 2016.
Another inmate reported the behavior to another deputy and that deputy reported the issue to the Sheriff’s Office Internal Affairs Division, according to the Savannah Morning News.
Richardson was investigated for five weeks by the Criminal Investigations Unit and the investigation determined he engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with the inmate for as long as six weeks.
A grand jury said that in July 2017, Richardson, 44 had sex with an inmate under his supervision on July 8 in a storage closet at the Chatham County Jail.
An indictment described additional charges for similar conduct with the same inmate on July 7, 8 and 16, as well as a similar charge for physically groping the same inmate after removing her from her cell “ostensibly to assist in tasks in the nature of cleaning chores” on July 7.
The grand jury determined Richardson made a false statement to a jail official investigating the assault on the female inmate.
On August 15, Richardson, a seven-year employee was fired and arrested after an investigation launched against him when another inmate reported his activities to another deputy, who reported it to internal affairs.
Today Richardson was transported to the Chatham County Detention Center, where he will await until he is eventually transported to a state prison.