A former chaplain with the Federal Bureau of Prisons pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually abusing a female inmate and lying to federal agents investigating the assault.
James Theodore Highhouse, 49, was employed as a corrections worker and chaplain at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, a low-security female prison, from May 2018 to February 2019, the Justice Department said in a statement.
"In his role as a prison chaplain, he led religious services, and offered spiritual guidance to the female inmates," the statement said.
As part of his guilty plea to five felony counts, Highhouse admitted that he sexually abused a woman whom he met with in alone in his office multiple times, according to the Justice Department. The woman was looking for spiritual guidance, it said.
Highhouse had the authority to handcuff inmates and refer them for discipline, the department noted.
He had received training in "maintaining boundaries with inmates" and attended "yearly BOP refreshers about sexual abuse and prevention," according to the Justice Department statement.
"He also taught religious-based classes about boundaries and self-worth, with the understanding that many inmates with whom he interacted came from a background of trauma, abuse, and substance addiction," the statement said.
Highhouse at least twice denied that he had sexually abused the victim, prosecutors said, once in February 2019 and again in February 2020, despite having admitted to the assault in a handwritten note in August 2019.
“Highhouse held a position of great trust as a prison chaplain. He exploited this trust and sexually abused an inmate under his care, and then lied in an effort to cover up his crimes,” said Zachary Shroyer, the special agent in charge of the Justice Department’s inspector general's field office in Los Angeles. “The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General will continue to root out this kind of abuse and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Attempts to reach Highhouse by phone Thursday were unsuccessful. He is expected to be sentenced in July and faces up to 39 years in prison.
Highhouse in January became the latest employee of the Bureau of Prisons charged with criminal wrongdoing in a prison system that has been rife with corruption and misconduct. The Associated Press reported in November that more than 100 Bureau of Prisons workers have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes since 2019, as the agency turned a blind eye to misconduct allegations.
He is the fourth employee at FCI Dublin, where the actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin spent time for their involvement in the college admissions bribery scandal, to be charged with sexually abusing inmates in the last several months.
The Bureau of Prisons has faced a multitude of crises in recent years, including the rampant spread of the coronavirus in its facilities, dozens of escapes, the deaths of inmates and workers, and critically low staffing levels that have hampered responses to emergencies.
The Justice Department announced last month that Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal would resign amid increasing scrutiny over his leadership. The agency’s deputy director announced days later that he would also leave his position in a few months.
