Law&Crime Sidebar - Inmate Crawls Past Jail Guard to Rape Female Detainee: Cops

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Deputies at a jail intake facility in Arizona were shocked when a male inmate was caught crawling backwards across a waiting room. Justin Avery was behind bars on allegations that he sexually assaulted five women on a college campus. Authorities say he admitted he planned to rape the female inmate. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber takes a closer look at the wild surveillance video with prison consultant Justin Paperny.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Officials say a sexual predator who was in lockup for allegedly attacking multiple women was caught on camera scooting his way across the jailhouse floor to allegedly assault another woman. You got to see this video and we're going to break it down for multiple angles with prison consultant Justin Piperney. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. You got to hear this one. Arizona officials say that an inmate at an intake facility was able to sneak past a deputy and try to sexually assault a woman. Yes. To talk about this,

I want to bring in prison consultant and friend of the show, Justin Piperney. Justin, good to see you. First, before we even get into the video, and there is a lot to get into. What are inmate intake facilities? First, walk us through that. Well, when you're taken into custody, there is a whole, there's a whole process. You are going to get naked or, as they say, squat and cough to make sure you're not smuggling anything in.

They'll ask you tons of questions. They'll give you a prison uniform. they'll drug test you. You'll go through a breathalyzer. And after several hours at times through segregation or sitting in a little hole waiting for them to come back and forth, they'll process you in. And several hours later, there you are sitting in prison. The intake process can be anywhere from an hour to several hours depending on how many people they're processing. Okay. So with that in mind, and that was a great setup to talk about this scenario. So this happened back in April. And the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office just released

the video. There are multiple camera angles that show us different views of this alleged sneak attack. So first, a little bit of background here. We have 29-year-old Justin Avery. He was at the intake transfer and release facility after he allegedly assaulted five different women in public places on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. He was arrested outside of a library because authorities say he didn't have any connection with ASU, but he allegedly used the campus as hunting grounds. Now, court documents alleged that he targeted women at random, mostly in parking garages, groping them. This is according to reports from the victims. One woman says that Avery tried to strangle her, so she ended up kicking him in the groin to get him to stop. Now,

Avery appeared before an Arizona judge. He is a repeat sexual predator attacking five women here. It is just extremely unfortunate that the victims could fight the defendant off to prevent the crimes going to their full extent. You know what's difficult? You know what's tough? Reading through legal briefs and filings to prepare for sidebar. It's like I'm back in law school. Being told, I look like Dennis Reynolds.

Every single time I check the comments, that wears on you. At this point, I think people think he hosts the show. Again, it's tough. But you know what's not difficult? Starting a claim with Morgan and Morgan. How about that transition, by the way? Well, Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm, they make the process as easy as possible for their clients

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Okay, so again, before we get into the specifics of this situation, my gosh. just and seems to be a guy that you know you don't want on the streets you just summed it up beautifully there are some people who are charged and arrested and be able to be given bond to continue to work in the community under supervision but as I read this he was a charge with sexually assaulting two people then immediately out on bond the next day so I think it speaks to corrections some people should be in the community some should not and you could argue there's some culpability with the government allowing him to return to the community. Now, I understand the cost of corrections and that it's very expensive to warehouse people in prison. A lot of these states are broke

and they don't want to spend more money than they need to. But if someone is at risk to the community and they've been charged with sexually assaulting people, perhaps some people shouldn't be removed or let go on bond because guess what? He did it again. So with that in mind, Avery's arrested. He's taken to jail and this surveillance video from inside the intake transfer and release facility near the jail is from a few days later. So it's April 17th. So this room is divided into two sections. There's a waiting area for women and then there's another one for men. There's a desk at the dividing line where a deputy sits, supposed to be keeping an eye on things. It's almost four in the morning at this point. So a lot of the detainees are trying to

sleep. Some are in street clothes. Others are in orange jail jumpsuits. And a lot of them have huddled down inside their shirts to try to stay warm or to block out the lights. Some are spread it out on the floor. And that includes our suspect, Avery. So Avery, as you see in this video, seems to get up off the floor, stretches, appears to wait for one of the deputies to leave the room. Then he sits down and slides out of view of the deputy, allegedly crawling and pushing himself backwards around the desk. He appears to get away with this for a little over a minute as he pushes himself toward a woman in white who's trying to sleep on the floor of the woman's side of the room. Then you have other cameras. They give us a view of Avery getting

closer to the woman before he appears and allegedly starts to pull his pants down and expose himself. Now, there are other women sitting in the same area. One appears to be asleep on the floor while the other is in a chair. It's unclear from the video if she says something to Avery, but he seems to put his finger to his lips in a be-quiet gesture. Court documents say the woman said, hey, get off of her, and that's when Avery allegedly shushed her. And that is when the deputy looks up, realizes what's going on, realizes that Avery's on the wrong side of the room,

and as soon as he spotted, Avery appears to stand up, pulling up his pants as he walks away from the woman on the floor. According to court documents, he later admitted he planned to rape her. So the deputy pulls out restraints, has a conversation with Avery for a few seconds before more deputies show up, put the cuffs on him. Avery seems to resist a little bit as they take him to another part of the facility. So, Justin, I am made of questions. First question I have, why were no restraints put on him?

Or is that not what happens in these kind of intake facilities? Sometimes they happen. It would be a discretion of the correctional officer. Clearly there was a breakdown. Someone didn't think that it was necessary. So that's breakdown number one. we can go on and on, too. There aren't that many prisoners inside of that detention center, which tells me it shouldn't

be that hard to oversee them. Three, you can look to the makeup that you have male prisoners so close to female prisoners. That's fine if they're nonviolent offenders. You'll see that in halfway houses across the country, male and female prisoners inside of the same institution, living 15, 20 feet from one another. But when you have alleged sex offenders so close to women, it's a problem. So I suspect they're going to go through protocols, look at all of these breakdowns, including holding correctional officers accountable. And there does have to be consequences for correctional officers here.

Without consequences, Jesse, then it can just continue. It's going to happen again. Someone needs to be held to account. A woman suffered. They're supposed to be protected while inside of detention. And if anything, you know, she's continued to be victimized. And I hope this person who's going to be in prison for quite some time get some mental health training, some correctional, some bad. some education on the inside because it's likely he's going to, he's not going to get a life

sentence if he pleads guilty. There's no chance. So a lot of breakdowns here. It has to be addressed, but there has to be consequences for this correctional officer. If not, people are going to say this can happen and this person doesn't get fired, I can do just about anything here. As we're trying to sort out, like who's at fault? You could say maybe it was the facility for not properly segregating these different people. And especially if you knew that Avery has this history. But I also want to question the deputy that's in that room. Now, you see Avery allegedly crawling them under the desk. He later describes it as spider-like, acting like a spider. Do you put any fault? Who do you put on fault? Do you put any fault on the deputy? Who should we

be thinking about? Is that fault here? Everyone within that institution. Part of the real, the only thing prisons care about are two things, keeping costs down and security of the institution, right? So responsibility rests with everyone who worked inside of that prison from the top all the way down. Someone's going to get fired. There have to be consequences here. This prisoner is clearly mentally ill, as unable to see right from wrong. And even in a confined setting looks to continue to victimize herp and hurt, as an he said, was attempting to rape another woman. So responsibility rests with the institution. They know that and they're fearing for their jobs and more changes are going to be coming. I mean, this would be

different if this was like a thousand people inside of this. institution but there were very few male and female prisoners there which tells you it should not be that hard to oversee them at any hour of the day huge breakdown and it has to change and he didn't think that there was surveillance cameras looking at what he was he might i mean again he might have thought he wouldn't evade detection from they don't care but yeah so when you're when you're ill and you're so obsessed or consumed with continuing to victimize people and i think i read that he had saw this woman and clearly found her attractive. He's already in prison. He's already looking at a lengthy of sentence. Clearly doesn't understand right from wrong. What's the risk if he gets

caught? They send him to segregation. He might care less about that. The reward was very much worth the risk. And he might have been studying that prison, looking at the lack of protocols, the breakdown, might have noticed this person kind of goes off the grid or falling asleep at 4 a.m. So if you're conniving or criminal enough, you're going to seize an opportunity, find an opening, even if you're in a detention center. Clearly this person did. And for 90 seconds, he was victimizing this woman. And as you said, could have been successful, has to be changes. It's so taking these allegations is true. I mean, it's so diabolical, allegedly crawling, not to escape, right? Not to escape, which I have seen those cases, but you see someone from across the

and you want to assault them. That's what makes this incredibly nefarious. Yes, I would agree. And it also speaks to what I said earlier. Should he even have been released into the custody? There are some people who need to remain confined. There are some people like this person. He need to be locked up segregated 23 hours a day.

Like Sean Combs and that detention center is Brooklyn confined, not in general population, this person, no different, confined 23 hours a day, totally separate. Think Hannibal Lecter, for goodness sake. No one can access him or be around him at any time. He is a menace who seeks to hurt and potentially assault and rape women. He should be around no prisoners at any time. All right. So to put a bow on this, according to Maricopa County court records, Avery was slapped with two

charges for this incident, attempt to commit sexual assault and also aggravated assault on a corrections employee. He might have been resisting at one point. His case has been continued several times. And by the way, he was previously convicted of shoplifting and disorderly conduct. Justin Perperney, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it, sir. Of course.

All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.