Guilty plea in case where Jackson County jail inmate was raped

A convicted Kansas City killer has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the sexual assault of another Jackson County Detention Center inmate.

Dontae Jefferson, 30, was in the jail in a murder case when another inmate let him out of his cell with a key he had taken from a guard. The guard had left her keys in his cell door. Jefferson and two other inmates roamed the jail’s halls for two hours last year. He went into a female prisoner’s cell and raped her.

A jury subsequently convicted Jefferson for the 2014 shooting that killed a Kansas City man and left the man’s young son paralyzed.

Jefferson was sentenced to life in prison without parole in that case.

On Thursday, he pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary with the intent to commit rape, and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Jackson County prosecutors dismissed the rape charge as part of a plea agreement.

“Our victim in this horrible sexual assault will not have to relive the experience with her attacker just a few feet away at trial,” Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a written statement. “A previous Jackson County jury made certain this assailant will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Just hours after his plea on Thursday, Jefferson was transported to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

This story was originally published December 1, 2017 at 3:08 PM with the headline "Guilty plea in case where Jackson County jail inmate was raped."