BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — An officer with the Vermont Department of Corrections has been accused of sexual misconduct with a woman he was supervising.
Vermont State Police arrested Joshua Russ, 35, of Brattleboro, on Thursday.
The woman reported to Brattleboro Probation and Parole on May 29 that her supervisor in the community, Russ, had paid her for oral sex several times, starting in January. The case was initially referred to police in Brattleboro. State police became involved when investigators learned of incidents that took place outside of the city, in Newfane.
Russ was arrested on suspicion of sexual exploitation of an inmate and prostitution. He was ordered jailed for lack of $5,000 bail pending his arraignment, scheduled for Friday afternoon. Russ also was placed on administrative leave.
Russ previously worked as a corrections officer at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vt., from 2005-08, according to the DOC. He was rehired at Brattleboro Probation and Parole in 2019.
The charges against Russ are just the latest in a series of sex cases involving the state’s corrections system.
A corrections officer at the Springfield prison was charged last year in a case involving an inmate at the facility, and a contracted mental health counselor at the same prison was accused earlier this year of having sex with an inmate.
It wasn’t immediately known if Russ had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. A phone number couldn’t be found for him.