Arizona prison teacher accuses inmate of rape, employer of negligence

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An Arizona prison teacher who said she was raped by an inmate is at the center of a legal controversy in which the state is accused of trying to dismiss her negligence lawsuit on the grounds of "it's a prison, this will happen," her attorney contends.

That claim, by attorney Scott Zwillinger, also was made Tuesday by an Arizona newspaper columnist, who criticized the Arizona attorney general's office.

"The AG's reasoning is essentially this: The woman knew she was in a prison, so what did she expect?" wrote Laurie Roberts in The Arizona Republic. "No, seriously. That's the reasoning."

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Teacher's version of events
On that January 2014 morning, the teacher was administering a pre-GED High School Equivalency test to six or seven inmates, including Harvey, court papers said.

The instructor wasn't trained in self-defense or how to control the movements of inmates, papers said.

She couldn't use the usual instructional space -- a visitation room with big windows for guards to observe the class -- because the prison was holding an awards ceremony in the room that day, the lawsuit said.

Instead, the teacher was assigned a classroom that wasn't monitored by security cameras and was in a remote location not monitored by prison guards, the suit said.

The prison gave the teacher a radio to use in case an inmate "acted up," the suit said.

The inmates arrived to the class unescorted, the lawsuit said.

After the inmates finished the test, all but Harvey left the classroom unescorted and returned to their dorms, the suit said.

Harvey asked the teacher if he could use the bathroom, located outside the classroom, but after the teacher got up from her desk, Harvey grabbed her from behind, pushed her to the ground and stabbed her multiple times in the head and hands with a pen, the suit said.

The teacher screamed and "began to bleed profusely," but Harvey "was stronger and he choked her and slammed her head in the floor multiple times," the lawsuit said.

The teacher "stopped fighting hoping to simply survive," and then the inmate raped her, the suit said.

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