COLUMBIA, S.C. — Saying he was "mad as hell," Gov. Jim Hodges fired South Carolina's prisons director Thursday after two guards were charged with allowing male and female inmates to have sex at the governor's residence.
The new charges deepened a prison sex scandal that has already involved convicted child killer Susan Smith.
"I've lost confidence in the leadership of the agency," Hodges said in firing Corrections Department Director Doug Catoe. "I am mad as hell, for the sanctity of my home has been violated," he said.
On Wednesday, Richland County chief prosecutor Barney Giese said two prison guards were charged with allowing inmates to have sex at the Governor's Mansion complex and at the governor's temporary residence in Columbia. The inmates were assigned there on work details. According to an affidavit, guard Freddie Priester left his post while inmates Nancy Mulwee and Antoine Frazier had sex. Priester and co-worker Demont Gilbert are also accused of failing to report sexual encounters between those prisoners and between inmates Michelle Mathias and Todd Johnson. The encounters began in April and ended in December, the affidavit said.
The department has been under fire since last year, when a guard was accused of having sex with Smith, who is serving a life sentence for drowning her two sons in a lake in 1994. About a dozen employees have already been fired.