Grainger County Jail In The Spotlight
A recently filed lawsuit has put the spotlight on a sex scandal involving the Grainger County jail. In the lawsuit former jail inmates Candace Mcghee and Chasity Bailey accuse a former officer in the jail of sexually abusing, coercing and intimidating multiple female inmates for his “pleasure and gratification”. The two say the abuse went on for months starting in February of 2021. The lawsuit says that former corrections officer Travis Hank Davis repeatedly forced female inmates to “strip naked for him or perform various sex acts on each other,” while the lawsuit alleges he watched from the control room and gave them directions through the jail intercom. The lawsuit alleges that Davis’ actions were made possible by the county’s policies, customs and practices of allowing cross-gender supervision of inmates in the female pod alone. Female inmates reportedly told other officers about the abuse but were ignored. The abuse ended shortly before Davis’ firing from his job on April 24, 2021. Besides Travis Hank Davis, Grainger County Sheriff James Harville, Grainger County Administrator Chris Harville, and Grainger County Corrections Officer Leonard Dalton are listed as defendants. Mcghee and Bailey, as well as other inmates in the pod at the time of the alleged incident, are requesting $10,000,000 in punitive damages. Plus an additional $500,000 for Mcghee and Bailey individually. The lawsuit is requesting relief for all female inmates who were housed in the jail from May of 2020 till April of 2022 in the amount of $5 million.