TN prison warden resigns after Herald-Leader story discloses her KY prison background
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tennessee prison warden resigned after past misconduct was publicly revealed.
- Kentucky records showed she sent explicit inmate messages before leaving in 2023.
- Tennessee corrections failed to vet her background before hiring last September.
A Tennessee state prison warden has resigned following recent disclosures by the Lexington Herald-Leader that she sent sexually explicit messages to an inmate in 2023 while working in a Kentucky state prison.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections said in a statement Monday that it has accepted the resignation of Taylor Rae Kapusta as warden of the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, effective Aug. 4.
Before hiring Kapusta in September 2023, the state of Tennessee failed to learn that — as the Herald-Leader reported — she quit her Kentucky job four months earlier as a mid-level administrator at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Oldham County during an investigation into written messages she exchanged with an inmate at the prison.
Kapusta used the name “Thuggg Numberone” to send messages through the prison’s JPay mail system during her off-hours, creating the JPay account in March 2023, investigators wrote.
Kapusta’s May 2023 resignation “with prejudice” and a full report on the investigation were included in her Kentucky personnel files, which the Herald-Leader obtained through the state’s Open Records Act.
However, the Tennessee Department of Corrections did not adequately research Kapusta’s employment history before hiring her and promoting her to warden for a salary of $136,800, twice what she made in Kentucky.
Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said there is no record of the state of Tennessee checking Kapusta’s background.
“The department is taking steps to enhance the process going forward,” Tennessee Department of Corrections spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said in a prepared statement on Monday.
Kapusta, originally of Scott County, served at several prisons in the Kentucky Department of Corrections from 2016 to 2023, working her way up from correctional officer to corrections unit administrator.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
