Wednesday, September 29, 1999
Doctors: Ex-guard insane
Didn't know right from wrong, they say
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Former Butler County Jail corrections officer Steven Cox could not distinguish right from wrong when he had sex on three occasions with a 22-year-old female inmate, two psychologists testified Tuesday.
Mr. Cox suffered from the mental illness bipolar, or manic-depressive, disorder, said Dr. Roger Fisher and Dr. Jeffrey Musgrove, who jointly evaluated him for the defense.
“Mr. Cox was not aware that what he was doing was wrong,” Dr. Fisher said during the second day of Mr. Cox's trial in Butler County Common Pleas Court. “His judgment was impaired. He had the delusional belief that God sanctioned his affair.”
Mr. Cox, 51, of Hamilton is charged with three counts of sexual battery and one count of attempted sexual battery involving a 22-year-old female inmate. Each of the three sexual battery charges carries a possible sentence of one to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The attempted sexual battery charge carries a possible prison sentence of 18 months.
Mr. Cox has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge Michael Sage is presiding over the trial.
Mr. Cox began exhibiting symptoms of manic depression in 1997, after learning that a job he had held at Beckett Paper Co. was being phased out in 1998, Dr. Fisher said.
He had trouble sleeping, was sexually impotent and could no longer perform simple household tasks, he said.
When he was hired by the Butler County Sheriff's Department in July 1998, he was taking Prozac, an anti-depressant prescribed by his physician, Dr. Fisher said.
But his job as a corrections officer caused him to sink further into depression and to behave even more erratically, he said.
“He dealt with his depression by becoming overly euphoric and manic,” Dr. Fisher said.
Actions such as wearing a woman's wig two or three times while making security rounds in the jail and passing out chocolate candy and plastic insects to female inmates are blatant examples of his manic behavior, he said.
His mental illness caused him to develop a relationship with the female inmate and to have sex with her last year, Dr. Fisher said.
“He believed he had fallen in love with her, and he believed she loved him,” he said. “Both were having trouble in their marriages. He felt it was ordained by God that they fall in love.”
The prosecution is expected to present psychological evidence today countering the defense testimony.
The female inmate testified that Mr. Cox had sex with her once through the bars of her cell and twice in a shower area in her cell, with the curtains pulled.
She said Mr. Cox initiated the sex, but he told his superiors in a taped interview that she asked him for sex. His attorney, Clayton Napier, said the female inmate got him to deposit $280 in her commissary account at the jail.
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