Officer denies sex with inmate at Taconic prison

WHITE PLAINS, USA — A correction officer at Taconic Correctional Facility took the witness stand yesterday and denied raping or touching a female inmate inappropriately.

Frederick Brenyah claimed his accuser made up the account of an early morning Feb. 25 tryst down the hall from her cell on while he was on the graveyard shift at the state prison in Bedford Hills.

"It's all lies," he told his lawyer, Harvey Kaminsky, responding to questions about whether he took the woman from her cell to the television room that morning or ever had any physical contact with her.

"Did you ever expose yourself to her?" Kaminsky asked.

"Never. I would never do that," Brenyah responded.

Brenyah, 54, is charged with third-degree rape and second-degree sexual abuse, both felonies punishable by up to four years in state prison. Under New York law, inmates cannot consent to sex with prison guards.

The 42-year-old woman testified that early on Feb. 25, Brenyah collected her from her cell, took her to the television room and told her he wanted to have sex with her. When she declined, she testified, he touched her forcibly and then told her he wanted to talk to her in the bathroom. There, she said, he propped her on a sink and forced her to have sex.

Key evidence for the prosecution is the woman's description of Brenyah's pubic hair, which she claimed was cut short. Once she gave the description after reporting the rape, state police investigators got a warrant and took photographs of his genitals, which were shown to the jury this week.

Brenyah, a native of Ghana who came to the United States in 1977, said he used to shave his pubic hair and underarms because of the oppressive heat where he was living in West Africa. He said he eventually stopped doing that once in this country, but that he continued to trim his hair. The defense has suggested that the woman could have simply repeated a rumor that Brenyah had shaved his pubic hair — and he testified yesterday that he might have shared that detail with fellow officers but never would have told that to any of the inmates.

He acknowledged on cross examination that his hair may have been trimmed at that time, but not that it would have been shaved to stubble as the woman suggested.

"She has never seen my pubic area," he told Assistant District Attorney Dan Schorr. "I don't know how she managed to know."

Before Brenyah testified, Kaminsky called six inmates who shared the D Gallery cellblock with the woman in February. All claimed they were light sleepers and did not hear anything out of the ordinary that morning, and some said they heard Brenyah's accuser singing in the shower a few hours later.

They said it was common to hear guards as they went through the cellblock, either when their keys jingled or when they opened doors, but they heard no such things that morning. Schorr then called a former correction officer who assisted in the investigation for the state Inspector General's Office. She said that doors could be opened silently and that guards could easily hold the bulk of their keys to keep them from jingling.

Brenyah, who is married and has two children, lives in Yonkers. He is suspended without pay pending the outcome of the trial.

Closing arguments before state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Dickerson are scheduled for this morning.