Former Noxubee County Sheriff Terry Grassaree plans to plead guilty in the federal case where a woman alleges he demanded she take sexually explicit photographs and videos of herself in jail — and then share them with him.

The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting at Mississippi Today and The New York Times highlighted Grassaree in its series, “Unfettered Power: Mississippi Sheriffs,” which showed how sheriffs can rule like kings in rural counties. They answer to no one and typically face little press or prosecutorial scrutiny.

In a 2020 lawsuit, Elizabeth Layne Reed accused two deputies, Vance Phillips and Damon Clark, of coercing her into having sex. She said the men gave her a cellphone and other perks in exchange for sexual encounters inside and outside the jail. Deputies even put a sofa in her cell.

According to her lawsuit, Grassaree knew all about his deputies' “sexual contacts and shenanigans,” but the sheriff did nothing to “stop the coerced sexual relationships.” 

In response, Grassaree has previously denied any knowledge of what his deputies were doing. “Are you a boss?” he asked. “Do your employees tell you everything they do?”

Instead of intervening, the lawsuit alleged, the sheriff “sexted” her and demanded that she use the phone the deputies had given her to send him “a continuous stream of explicit videos, photographs and texts” while she was in jail. She also alleged in the lawsuit that Grassaree touched her in a “sexual manner.”

The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.

The original federal indictment accused Grassaree of using his cellphone to facilitate a bribe, which experts say could have been the perks the woman says she received.

One of those deputies, Phillips, pleaded guilty last year to bribery. Prosecutors asked for his sentencing to be postponed “pending a resolution of another criminal matter,” an obvious reference to Grassaree's case.

The judge granted the request, and no date has been set yet for Phillips' sentencing. 

The other deputy, Vance, wasn't charged. “I never coerced Reed into sex,” he wrote in his response to the lawsuit, but he never answered whether he had sex with her.

Under Mississippi law, it is a crime for officers to have sex with those behind bars, and the felony carries up to five years in prison.

The superseding indictment accuses Grassaree of lying to the FBI, destroying evidence and wire fraud.

According to a document filed by his attorney in U.S. District Court, Grassaree plans to plead guilty to charges, but does not specify which ones. If he pleaded guilty to all of them, he could face up to 90 years in prison.

Nearly two decades ago, Grassaree faced allegations of rape inside the jail that he supervised and lawsuits claiming that he covered up the episodes. At least five people, including one of his fellow deputies, accused him of beating others or choking them with a police baton.

In 2006, after Grassaree and his staff left jail cell keys hanging on a wall, male inmates opened the doors to the cell of two women inmates and raped them, according to statements the women gave to state investigators. One of the women said Grassaree pressured her to sign a false statement to cover up the crimes, according to the state police report.

About a year later, in a lawsuit, four people who had been arrested gave sworn statements accusing Grassaree of violence. Two of the people said he choked or beat them while they were in his custody. A third said he pinned her against a wall and threatened to let a male inmate rape her.

All told, at least eight men — including four deputies and Grassaree himself — have been accused of sex abuse by women inmates who were being held in the Noxubee County jail while Grassaree was in charge.

Now, 18 years after a woman first said that he pressured her to lie about being raped, the former sheriff faces possible prison time.

In an interview from 2023, Reed said she wanted the public to know what happened to her in the hope that others would come forward. “Women in jail and prison need to be protected, she said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.