Prison Nurse Who Sexually Abused Female Inmates Is Sentenced

When he worked as a nurse at Oregon's Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Tony Klein sexually abused nine women. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars for the crimes, after having been convicted in July, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. The 39-year-old was also convicted of lying under oath about the crimes. During his trial, 17 women testified about Klein touching them inappropriately either during medical appointments or while they were on orderly duty cleaning the prison infirmary; some of them said he forced them to perform oral sex or to have sexual intercourse. A prosecutor said this was the largest prosecution, in terms of the number of victims, the Department of Justice has ever pursued against a government official accused of abusing their power to sexually assault victims, Oregon Live reports.

"While employed at Coffee Creek, the defendant was a sexual predator in a lab coat, with access to some of Oregon's most powerless women," federal prosecutors said in court records. "He moved freely in a facility where his victims' movements were constrained. He brazenly violated the law in the very place that his victims were being held accountable for their own crimes. And he acted with the certainty that even if any victim dared report his sexual misconduct, they would not be believed—because they were inmates and he was a member of the staff." Klein, who is expected to appeal, did not speak during the sentencing hearing other than to answer "yes" when asked if he understood that he had a right to speak. (More Oregon stories.)