A guard at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center jail was charged Wednesday with abusing his authority by sexually abusing a detainee — after the feds recovered his DNA on the inmate’s jumpsuit.
James Johnson, 36, forced the inmate into sexual acts with him in May 2025 inside the jail’s chaplain room and a rarely used office suite, according to an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court.
“As alleged, Johnson leveraged his position as a correctional officer to take advantage of a man he was supposed to be protecting in his capacity as a prison guard and used his access to gratify his own sexual desires,” said Joseph Nocella, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement.
The MDC guard was also charged with making false statements for allegedly lying to federal agents in November 2025 by falsely claiming that he never had sex with an inmate.
Johnson was arrested Wednesday morning after the feds discovered his DNA on the unidentified inmate’s jail jumpsuit. The victim had wiped Johnson’s semen on the jumpsuit after the second alleged sexual encounter with him, court papers allege.
The alleged abuser, who at the time of his arrest still had a Bureau of Prisons job as a“mentor coordinator” in the MDC’s Religious Services Department, was released on $100,000 bail after making his first appearance before a judge. He covered his face with the hood of his winter jacket on his way of the courthouse, and his attorney declined to comment.
Johnson faces up to life in prison if convicted of sexual abuse and sexual abuse of a ward.
The alarming allegations are just the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Sunset Park jail, which houses high-profile detainees like deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and alleged healthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione.
In 2024, nine inmates at the lockup were charged with a series of savagely violent assaults that left two men dead and others critically injured.
Defense attorneys, prisoner advocates and federal judges have consistently railed against the jail, with one jurist in 2021 ripping jail officials for being “morons” who subject inmates to disgusting conditions.
