Criminal Justice

Woman Sues After Prison Staff Decided To Use Her as Rape 'Bait'

Their plan: have someone hide in the ceiling to catch the assailant in the act.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 3.4.2026 12:45 PM

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When staff at the Logan Correctional Center learned a prison counselor may have been repeatedly sexually assaulting a female inmate, they did the sane and humane thing and immediately removed her from his reach while opening an investigation into the alleged assailant.

Just kidding. What they really did was decide to use the inmate as rape "bait."

The idea was that when the counselor tried again, a prison investigator would jump down from a hiding space in the ceiling to stop the attack.

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The plan didn't work. The inmate was assaulted again.

And she has since sued, alleging cruel and unusual punishment.

'No Reasonable Official Could Have Thought It Proper To Act as They Did'

The case came before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit last fall, on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois.

Prison counselor Richard MacLeod "repeatedly sexually assaulted" Andrea Nielsen while she was imprisoned at Illinois' Logan Correctional Center, writes Judge David Hamilton in the appeals court's February 26 opinion. But rather than "protecting Nielsen from further assaults" when her cellmate reported the abuse to prison investigator Todd Sexton and Warden Margaret Burke, the pair "formulated an outrageous plan to use her as unwitting 'bait' to try to catch MacLeod in the act."

"The plan was for Sexton to stay late a few times, crawl around in the ceiling above the room MacLeod used to sexually assault Nielsen, and wait to jump down and intervene," notes Hamilton. "The plan failed, and MacLeod assaulted her again."

Nielsen went on to file a civil lawsuit against Burke, Sexton, and MacLeod. A jury found all three liable and ordered them to pay Nielsen $19.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Two of the defendants—Burke and Sexton—subsequently appealed.

A three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision to deny them qualified immunity and to deny their motion that there was insufficient evidence for a guilty finding. "No reasonable official could have thought it proper to act as they did," states the opinion.

But the appeals court also partially reversed the lower court's ruling and ordered a new trial on damages—but not liability—for Sexton and Burke, citing "erroneous exclusion of evidence" at trial among other things. So, they're still guilty, but a new trial will be necessary to determine how much money they're on the hook for.

'Sexual Abuse Ran Rampant'

According to Nielsen's trial testimony, "sexual abuse ran rampant" at the correctional center.

"The data agree with her," writes Hamilton in the appeals court's decision. "Reported rates of sexual abuse at Logan were the highest in the state among women's prisons and the second highest among all Illinois prisons. Several staff members, not just MacLeod, were caught sexually abusing inmates around the time of the events of this case."

MacLeod was Nielsen's counselor—a position which put him in control of facilitating her calls with her 6-year-old daughter. The sexual assaults would take place when she went to his office to........

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