4 women accuse ex-Missouri guard of using prison as his sexual ‘hunting ground’
Ashley Zieser was addicted to meth in 2014 when she was sent to the Chillicothe Correctional Center, the women’s prison in western Missouri. She found the place terrifying, but she committed herself to getting her GED and into work release.
It was in a warehouse, where Zieser was working, that she first encountered guard Edward Bearden. He stopped her, grabbed his penis and said, “You know you want that,” she said. It was just the beginning of his abuse, she told jurors in a civil case Monday.
Later, Zieser said, she was cleaning the administration building when Bearden told her to get the trash out of a break room, which she did. But then he came up behind her, slid his hands in her pants and assaulted her, she said.
“It felt like forever,” Zieser told the jury seated in the federal courthouse in downtown Kansas City, before recounting additional allegations against Bearden.
Zieser was the first of four women expected to take the stand this week in their consolidated lawsuits against Bearden, who they say sexually assaulted them at the prison about 90 miles northeast of Kansas City.
Bearden, who worked for the Missouri Department of Corrections from 2008 to September 2018, denies the accusations. His lawyers said the incidents never occurred and painted the women as not to be trusted.
During opening statements in front of Chief U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips, one of the women’s lawyers, Susan McGraugh, warned the jurors that the allegations may “shock and alarm you.” Pointing across the courtroom at Bearden, McGraugh said he considered the women’s prison his “personal hunting ground.”
The women had accepted their prison sentences, which isolated them from their children and communities, and sought to better themselves, McGraugh said. But they crossed paths with Bearden, who McGraugh claimed had a pattern: groom and compliment the women, giving them items they could not have; sexually harass them; isolate them into small spaces without cameras; and rape them.
She laid out the additional allegations.
McGraugh told the jurors they would hear from Lynnsey Betz, who alleges Bearden pushed her against the wall of a cleaning closet and assaulted her. Betz cried from the plaintiff’s table, seated with the other women, as McGraugh told her story. The survivor of a previous rape, Betz suffered from anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and severe night terrors as a result, McGraugh said.
The jurors will also hear from Karen Keil, who says Bearden’s harassment started when he singled her out for pat downs. Then things escalated: Bearden raped her more than 20 times in a storage closet, McGraugh alleged. It left Keil with “extreme mental trauma” and made it painful for her to walk and use the restroom, her lawyer said.
A fourth woman, who is listed in court records as Jane Doe, is also expected to take the stand. Bearden complimented her before he followed her into a room and forced her to perform oral sex, McGraugh told the jury.
A professor at Saint Louis University School of Law, McGraugh said her team will additionally call another woman who alleges Bearden inappropriately touched her; an expert who, after reviewing the women’s health records, will tell of the lasting affect of the alleged assaults; and a former prison official who will testify that guards know where cameras are, and aren’t, located.
Nicolas Taulbee, a lawyer with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which is representing Bearden, told the jury the case was one of “who you believe” and said they will hear Bearden testify that the “horrible” allegations are not true.
“This did not happen,” Taulbee said twice during his opening statement.
The women know each other and have convictions that include crimes of dishonesty, such as forgery and fraud, Taulbee said.
Before 2018, Bearden had been accused of “nothing” during his time as a guard, his attorney said. Taulbee called the prison a “busy place” where guards watch each other to assure they are safe. Staff is “expected and obligated” to report any misconduct, he noted.
No one in the correctional center, including 540 employees and 1,400 prisoners, reported the allegations at the time, Taulbee said. DOC keeps video recording from its cameras for just 30 days, unless there is reason to save it, so jurors would not see footage from that time, he added.
The women’s lawyers said they did not report the abuse until they were safe.
No criminal charges have been filed against Bearden.
‘It happened to me, too’
After Zieser said she was assaulted, she tried to collect herself. But she was in shock.
She later noticed while using the restroom that the alleged attack left her bleeding. The pain from the assault, she said, lasted a week.
Zieser said she did not tell anyone about the assault — or the one that followed a week later — because she could have lost privileges, including phone calls and the job she worked so hard to get after obtaining her GED. She thought she could get thrown in “the hole,” which women at CCC also call “the shoe.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
DOC officials have said the department does not use phrases like “the hole” or “solitary confinement,” but instead segregates prisoners for various reasons. At times, they have said, that includes for a prisoner’s protection from further victimization or retaliation.
During another incident, Zieser said, she was in the administration building’s locker room — which guards are not allowed to enter — and Bearden grabbed her hair and demanded she perform oral sex. Another prisoner ran over and Bearden left, Zieser said.
Zieser requested a transfer, but she did not say why. She got moved to work in a garage.
Once out of prison, Zieser went to get her hair done by a woman who she met behind bars. As they talked, the woman asked Zieser if she had “heard about Karen” Keil — one of the other women suing Bearden. Zieser hadn’t, and when she reached out to Keil, she told her to call John Ammann, one of the lawyers from Saint Louis University.
“I said, ‘It happened to me, too,’” said Zieser, who at times wiped away tears on the stand.
Zieser now has nightmares and wakes up in a sweat. She freaks out, as she put it, when anyone, including her daughter, hugs her from behind. The sound of keys — similar to the noise Bearden’s belt made — leaves her feeling like she is under water.
On cross examination, Abbie Rothermich, an attorney from the AG’s office, went over Zieser’s criminal history, which includes a conviction for assault on a law enforcement officer, in more detail. Zieser corrected Rothermich when she said she had five felony convictions; it is actually six, Zieser said.
Jurors submitted written questions for Zieser, including one that asked her if there were cameras leading to the areas “where you were abused.” Zieser said she did not think so.
The women are seeking monetary damages from the jury of five men and three women.
The trial resumed Tuesday morning and is expected to last through Thursday or Friday.
Other women have alleged abuse at Chillicothe before.
In 2017, John Thomas Dunn, a counselor at the prison, pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with a prisoner.
Two years later, Teresa Ketner, in a federal lawsuit, accused Dunn of sexually abusing his patients for years and preying on women with mental health issues. Dunn’s criminal behavior did not end until he was arrested by an outside agency, Ketner said.
Ketner’s attorney, Brendan Roediger of SLU, previously told The Star that as many as nine women had accused Dunn of wrongdoing, whether officially or not.
In 2019, it was disclosed in court filings that the U.S. Department of Justice, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was investigating the “possibility of federal criminal charges” against prison staff accused by women.
Earlier this year, a DOJ spokeswoman said the department could not comment on any potential investigation.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 12:41 PM.
