CHEYENNE - The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit against a New Mexico detention officer, alleging he sexually assaulted two female inmates from Wyoming at a Gallup, N.M., jail and photographed them in the nude.

At the time of the alleged incidents in 2003, the inmates were housed in New Mexico because of overcrowding at Wyoming's only female correctional institution, the Wyoming Women's Center in Lusk.

The lawsuit claims sexual abuse and cruel and unusual punishment by Detention Officer Brian Orr of the McKinley County (N.M.) Detention Center. The complaint was filed on behalf of inmates Sheila Black and Christine Herden.

The ACLU alleges that Orr repeatedly sexually assaulted the two women and photographed them in the nude, causing physical injury and severe psychological and emotional distress.

The complaint also alleges that the jail's acting warden, Gilbert Lewis, the McKinley County commissioners and the Centerville, Utah, company that managed the jail, Management and Training Corp., were negligent for failing to properly train and supervise Orr.

"If proper safeguards had been in place, these assaults may never have occurred," Peter Simonson, executive director for the ACLU of New Mexico, said in a statement Monday.

He alleged that the warden and the company failed to properly investigate the threat to inmates.

Linda Burt, executive director of the Wyoming ACLU chapter, issued a statement condemning the alleged actions.

"We realize that prisons are not pleasant places," she said. "However, all prisoners are entitled to basic rights, and protection against predatory guards certainly is one of those rights."

No phone listings were found in New Mexico for Brian Orr or Gilbert Lewis.

Management and Training Corp. spokesman Carl Stuart said company officials were reviewing the complaint.

"We have not responded to it but will do so with the court in a timely manner," he said.

A message left Monday for McKinley County Attorney Doug Decker was not immediately returned. McKinley County Sheriff Felix Begay was attending a funeral and was not available for comment Monday, an assistant said.

Melinda Brazzale, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Corrections, declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing agency policy in not wanting to jeopardize pending litigation.

However, she did say the state no longer has a contract with New Mexico.

"We have made the effort to consolidate all of our out-of-state inmates into one state, and at this point that is Texas," she said.

Due to lack of space at the Wyoming Women's Center, the Department of Corrections moved women prisoners out of state in September 1999, first to a private facility in McLoud, Okla.

In April 2003, the group was moved to McKinley County, N.M. Then, in October 2003, a facility in Brush, Colo., opened, and the inmates were moved there.

In April 2005, female inmates were sent to the Rolling Plains Regional Jail and Detention Center in Haskell, Texas.

Currently, 105 women prisoners are housed in Lusk and 76 in Texas, Brazzale said.

Black, now 28, was sentenced by a Campbell County judge in 2003 to two to five years in prison for unlawful possession of a narcotic drug. She was paroled Sept. 2, 2005.

Herden, 23, was sentenced in Natrona County in February 2005 to two to five years for forgery. She remains incarcerated in Haskell, Texas.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court of New Mexico last month.

Capital bureau reporter Robert W. Black can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or robert.black@casperstartribune.net.