The following report by Eric Francis appears on the on the Eagle Times website
WINDSOR - A female inmate who admitted to making up allegations that she was repeatedly raped and drugged by a male guard at the Southeast State Correctional Facility will spend up to another six months behind bars as a consequence.
Pamela Yandow, 34, who has since been transferred to another women's facility in Waterbury, was sentenced to an additional three-to-six months time beyond her current sentence after she pleaded guilty Wednesday to giving false information to the law enforcement officers who were investigating her claims of abuse.
Following Yandow's sentencing, Corrections Officer Peter Lemieux said that he was pleased Yandow was being punished for making up stories about him, but he didn't think the maximum penalty provided for by the misdemeanor charge reflected the level of harm the false accusations caused him and other guards who have had similar charges leveled at them by inmates.
"It's character assassination and it causes a total invasion of your personal life and your work life," Lemieux said. "Her intent was to humiliate me and drag me through the mud and she succeeded in doing that.
"The administration and my supervisors were very supportive but it just kind of cast a shadow over me with my co-workers and caused me a huge amount of stress at work and at home," Lemieux said, as he described the intense investigation that was launched by several Vermont agencies after Yandow gave graphic descriptions of things Lemieux supposedly did to her - all of which authorities said turned out to be unfounded.
"Certain inmates use this type of allegation to retaliate against staff," Lemieux said. "Every male supervisor I know at Windsor has now been accused of either inappropriate sexual conduct or physical assault and all of them have been cleared," he said.
"I'm glad the state is starting to take these cases more seriously. That abuse reporting system is in place to protect real victims of crime and whenever an inmate does something like this it sets them all back," Lemieux said.