Gee and Ursula: Was Green Hill inmate groomed by guard?

A 31-year-old woman who works at the Green Hill juvenile detention facility, in Chehalis, as a corrections officer allegedly had sexual relations with a 23-year-old man who is an inmate at the facility.

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On “The Gee and Ursula Show” on KIRO Newsradio Friday, co-hosts Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin disagreed on whether the man was groomed but both agreed the woman should be fired.

“Abuse of power, all that stuff, lose your job,” Gee said. “There’s no room for that kind of behavior. When you know better, you do better. You should know better than to do that.”

However, Gee had a different reaction when Ursula noted the man is alleging he was groomed by the guard.

Ursula begged the question, “Do we underestimate a woman’s ability to prey on young people?”

“In this specific case, I don’t think that the 31-year-old groomed the 23-year-old inmate,” Gee responded. “No, I think the 23-year-old wanted to move and groove in this situation and took advantage of that.”

Ursula pointed out she doesn’t know what age the situation started and there is a “power differential.”

“This inmate is saying he was groomed and however that happened — luring with promises of this, that or the other thing — yeah, you can be groomed and I’m sorry, but someone who’s in their early 20s? Remember the whole brain thing doesn’t fully mature?” Ursula said.

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Producer of “Gee and Ursula” Andrew Lanier brought up relationships between female teachers and their male students.

“I found some evidence this morning about the staggering number of female teachers that have been arrested for some sort of sexual misconduct with students,” Andrew said. “I was surprised by that, and we don’t respond the same to those instances as we do with male teachers. We look at a male teacher as assaulting a student, and we call it an inappropriate sexual relationship when it is a woman and a male student.”

Switching back to the guard and the inmate situation, Gee said he does not think the inmate was taken advantage of.

“I guarantee you that 23-year-old, it was not something that he was walking down the hallway one day and he got a little nervous and she took advantage of him,” Gee said. “That’s not what happened. He wanted it to happen.”

To which Ursula fired back, “You do not know this and depending on the mental capacity of the inmate at 20, you do not know.”

Gee then delved into his personal experience.

“Never in my life have I had buddies sit around and tell me how the older woman took advantage of them, that’s number one,” Gee said. “Number two, yes, I was in military school, I was in high school. Now I probably shouldn’t say this, but it’s filter-free Friday, I had situations.”

Ursula asked the question, “If it were reversed and it was an older guy with a younger … ?”

“Grooming,” Gee said immediately.

“You would say it’s grooming?” asked Ursula.

“Yes,” Gee said.

“A woman cannot do the grooming?” reiterated Ursula.

“No,” Gee responded.

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In the situation of a young woman and an older man, Andrew asked, “Is it possible that some young women also feel the same way, that they weren’t taken advantage of in situations like that?”

Switching gears again, Gee asked what would be the benefit for a young male prisoner having a relationship with a female guard? To which Ursula and Andrew said preferential treatment, getting drugs snuck into the jail, etc.

The conversation ended with Andrew asking Gee: if a 17-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman met at a grocery store and developed a relationship, is that completely consensual?

“Yes!” Gee exclaimed.

Contributing: Frank Sumrall, MyNorthwest

Julia Dallas is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read her stories here. Follow Julia on X here and email her here.

Listen to Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin weekday mornings from 9 a.m.- noon on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.