The Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department is submitting charges after two inmates reported being inappropriately touched.

Sheriff Mike Strong said a complaint from a Buchanan County inmate was submitted June 27 in reference to an employee of Advanced Correctional Healthcare touching a woman inappropriately.

“An investigation was initiated and was substantiated through witnesses, statement, accounts and other corroborative evidence,” Strong said. “During the course of the investigation a second victim was discovered whose account was largely similar in content.”

Strong said two cases will be submitted Tuesday afternoon to the Buchanan County Prosecutor’s Office for consideration of charges.

“Advanced Correctional Healthcare has been very cooperative in the investigation,” Strong said. “The employee of course was immediately suspended and it’s my understanding he’s been terminated by Advanced Healthcare.”

Strong said an investigation was launched right after a report was made and concluded Monday.  He said there are safeguards to try to prevent situations like this from happening.

“We have a healthcare facility upstairs where we do our exams and that’s where it occurred at,” Strong said. “One of the safeguards that we had in effect actually is what brought this to light.  We do and did have stuff in place.  We’re going to try to make them even better.”

Strong said the employee was not hired by the sheriff’s department but through Advanced Correctional Healthcare a contract company for the jail.

“To our knowledge and their knowledge there was not anything in this gentleman’s background that would have sent up alarms on this because if there had I can assure you I would not have allowed him into the building and Advanced Correctional Healthcare would not have hired him,” Strong said.

The charges are now being submitted for consideration by the prosecutor’s office.  We will post more on this story as more information becomes available.