KINGMAN – Two women who engaged in sexual activity with inmates at the state prison in Golden Valley appeared for separate Wednesday hearings in Mohave County Superior Court. Defense attorney Mike Manusia asked that Melony Petrovffsky, 50, Golden Valley, be spared from lock up for her guilty plea to an unlawful sexual conduct by a correctional employee charge.
“She’s completely humiliated and remorseful,” Manusia told Judge Rick Lambert. “She is sick with grief.”
Prosecutor James Schoppmann urged the Court to send a sentencing message that fortifies the integrity of the justice system that he said Petrovffsky stained.
“The system itself is humiliated if there’s no consequence,” Schoppmann said, noting there would be greater community alarm if it was a male having sex with a female inmate. “If the genders were reversed the public would be outraged. That shouldn’t matter.”
Judge Lambert noted that Petrovffsky was instructed to avoid improper communication and contact with inmates when she was trained for her job with the GEO Group, the private company that operates the prison under contract with the state.
“The surveillance video captured you in various sexual acts with an inmate,” Lambert told Petrovffsky. “You breached your duty as a correctional employee and the Court finds that probation under these circumstances is inappropriate.
Judge Lambert imposed a six-month prison sentence.
Another former GEO employee who also engaged in sex with one or more inmates while manning the prison commissary pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual conduct by a correctional employee. 11 other counts for the same charge are dismissed in the plea agreement for Genevieve Belden, 32, Kingman.
Prosecutor Phillip Delgado said Belden kissed, fondled and had sexual intercourse with another inmate on multiple occasions.
Belden is eligible for probation but could get up to 1.5-years in prison when sentenced Feb. 19.
Dave Hawkins
Ha…you go girl…now was it really worth loosing everything….wow…