Second Blackburn employee charged with rape of inmate

A former Blackburn Correctional Complex employee who worked in the mattress plant at the prison in Fayette County has been arrested on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with an inmate.

Bernadette Luttrell, 48, was being held Tuesday at the Casey County jail on charges of third-degree rape, and first-degree and second-degree official misconduct.

Luttrell is alleged to have had a sexual relationship with an inmate from May until she resigned from the state Department of Corrections in June, according to a news release from the Kentucky Department of Corrections.

The case against Luttrell comes less than a week after another former worker at Blackburn, Jennifer Wiseman, also was charged with having a sexual relationship with an inmate.

Luttrell joined the state corrections department in 1998. She became an office coordinator with Kentucky Correctional Industries, a division of the department, in 2007.

According to the department, she was a production coordinator at Blackburn, working in the prison's mattress plant.

Corrections officials said Blackburn authorities began an internal investigation into the case June 24.

This story was originally published December 17, 2013 at 12:45 PM with the headline "Second Blackburn employee charged with rape of inmate."