NC jailer charged with multiple sex crimes. Sources say victim is a transgender inmate
A Mecklenburg County jailer implicated last month in the alleged sexual assault of a transgender inmate was arrested Monday and charged with multiple sex crimes.
Court records indicate that detention officer Kyle Harris of Charlotte was arrested by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police at 12:30 p.m. near Archdale Road and South Boulevard, police say. The 28-year-old was released on $60,000 unsecured bond, records indicate.
According to his arrest warrant, Harris is charged with:
▪ Three counts of second degree sexual offense.
▪ One count of attempted second degree sexual offense.
▪ Two counts of sexual battery.
▪ One count of a sexual act by a government employee.
Under N.C. law, second-degree sexual offense is a felony involving a sex act against a person’s will or if the person has a mental disability or is physically helpless.
NC jailer under investigation in alleged sexual assault of trans inmate, sources say
Harris has no previous criminal history, according to an Observer public records search.
Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden announced Harris’s firing Monday afternoon.
“All employees of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office are required to demonstrate professional and ethical conduct. There is no place in this organization for any employee that violates the public’s trust and confidence in MCSO,” McFadden said.
The Observer normally does not identify the victims of alleged sexual crimes. As the paper first reported, the jail attack allegedly involved a 21-year-old transgender person who identifies as a woman, and who was being held in pretrial detention at the Mecklenburg jail as a defendant in a federal identity-theft prosecution.
Sources told the Observer that the alleged attack occurred May 20. Harris was suspended the next day pending an investigation into “criminal misconduct,” according to a statement from the sheriff’s office. No other details were provided at that time.
According to documents in her federal case, the woman was arrested on multiple felony charges in February. In March, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler ordered her to remain in custody until her trial.
But on May 27, after the woman’s defense attorney filed two sealed motions, Keesler — without elaboration — changed course and placed the woman under home confinement. He also ordered that she receive “any medical or mental health treatment” she might need. She was released from custody later that day.
The woman’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Cecilia Oseguera, declined to discuss what she had filed other than to say that her client was “definitely a victim in this matter.”
The inmate’s allegations, if true, mark the latest act of violence against Charlotte-area transgender residents. In April, two Black transgender women were fatally shot in Charlotte motels.
Jaida Peterson, 29, was discovered in a room at Quality Inn near the airport, on April 4, Easter Sunday. Eleven days later, police found 28-year-old Remy Fennell at the Sleep Inn in University City.
Two suspects in the killings, Dontarius Long, 21, and Joel Brewer, 33, have been charged with murder and robbery conspiracy, among other things, The Observer has previously reported.
Meanwhile, Thomas Hardin of York, S.C., another Black transgender woman, is among the five murder victims now linked to accused killer Tyler Terry, who faces murder charges in two states. Terry’s alleged accomplice, Adrienne Simpson, has also been charged with murder in connection with the killing of Hardin, who was found May 2 at home.
The Human Rights Campaign reports at least 27 violent deaths of transgender or gender non-conforming people in 2021. That follows a record 44 killings in 2020.
According to the HRC, almost half of the country’s transgender residents will be sexually assaulted during their lifetimes.
The jail was also rocked last month by the deaths of two inmates.
NC jailer under investigation in alleged sexual assault of trans inmate, sources say
