Female Guard Offered Sex, Drugs to Rikers Inmate: Authorities

Investigators found found about 70 grams of marijuana inside her Bronx home, authorities said.

A female guard at New York City's Rikers Island jail faces criminal charges accusing her of planning to provide marijuana to an inmate with whom she was having a sexual relationship, authorities said Sunday.

Nicole Bartley, 30, employed as a correction officer since May 2014, was reporting for her 5 a.m. shift at the jail when Gunner, a drug-sniffing dog, became alert as she entered the front gate, investigators said.

Investigators found no drugs on her, but later found about 70 grams of marijuana inside her Bronx home, authorities said.

Under state law, inmates cannot consent to sexual relationships inside the jail, so Bartley was charged Saturday with third-degree rape, a felony, according to the Bronx District Attorney's Office. She was also charged with sexual misconduct, official misconduct, promoting prison contraband and possession of marijuana.

There was no indication that Bartley had obtained a lawyer who could comment on the charges. She was suspended from her job after her arrest.

Bartley is the 26th Rikers staff member arrested since 2014 when the city Department of Investigation began an operation focused on corruption at the facility, said Mark Peters, the agency's commissioner.

"This case involving sex for drugs puts on full display the dangers of corruption in our city's jails and the connection between the drugs, inappropriate relationships and violence that pervade the system," Peters said. 

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