A former federal corrections officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in COVID-19 isolation and then lying to federal investigators about the assault.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II sentenced Jose Viera, 49, to a maximum sentence in the Central District of California Monday for raping an inmate in December 2020, when he was serving as a corrections officer at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles (MDC-LA).
Viera pleaded guilty to a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law in May 2022.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the U.S. Bureau of Prisons officer “caused incalculable pain” on the victim and “must be held accountable.”
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Former BOP corrections officer Jose Viera, 49, received a maximum sentence for raping an inmate at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center in December 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
“Law enforcement officials must be held accountable when they abuse their authority and exploit their power to sexually assault the very people they are sworn to protect,” Clarke said in a statement. “This defendant’s actions destroyed this woman’s sense of peace, caused incalculable pain, and shattered her trust in law enforcement.”
According to court documents, Viera was tasked with caring for a woman who was quarantined due to COVID-19 exposure. He was allowed to enter her cell to give her breakfast, as he did on several occasions before the incident, the Department of Justice said.
The inmate, identified as J.P., wrote in a victim’s statement that on Dec. 20, Viera entered the cell, instructed her to face the wall then forcibly raped her on the bed.
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According to the statement, she found his semen on the sheets,…
