Less than two months after the Durham County Sheriff’s Office charged two former employees with having sex with an inmate, it has charged two more employees with separate crimes involving inmates at the jail.
One of the defendants is a detention officer; the other is a contract worker, the Durham County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Former Sgt. Nicole Locke, 45, of Raleigh, was arrested Friday on multiple charges. Among them: two counts of felony conspiracy; one count of providing telephone/electronics to inmates, also a misdemeanor; and one count of felony conspiracy.
Locke’s arrest warrant accuses her of providing components of a cellphone to an inmate at the Durham County Jail at 219 S Mangum St. in August.
The identified inmate is the same as the one with whom two former detention center employees are accused of having sex in 2023. The man is in custody on several charges, including murder, court and jail records show.
The N&O is not publicly identifying the inmate.
Locke was released on a $15,000 unsecured bond, the release said.
Earlier this month, on October 7, Briana Ashley Bowie, 31, of Durham, a nurse contracted to work at the prison, was charged with one felony count of conspiracy to sell a Schedule VI controlled substance.
Bowie’s arrest warrant accuses her of bringing marijuana to an inmate in September. She is also accused of conspiring with the inmate to sell the contraband into the prison. The inmate is not the same as the one identified in Locke’s case.
Bowie’s bond was set at $5,000 unsecured.
Locke and Bowie are no longer associated with the office, Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead said.
“I will not support any activity that contradicts our mission in the care and custody of the people incarcerated in the Durham County Detention Facility,” he said in a statement. “Whether it’s a Sheriff’s Office employee or a contractor; we must hold everyone who interacts with our residents to a high standard.”
Past charges
In September, the sheriff’s office accused two former employees of having sex with the same inmate at the jail last year.
The sheriff’s office said the encounter was not violent, but consent is not a legal defense, The News & Observer reported.
The charges are part of an “ongoing investigation into alleged sexual activity at the Durham County Detention Facility,” the sheriff’s office said at the time.
