A former corrections officer has been found guilty of raping women in prison

INDIANAPOLIS. A former corrections officer at an Indiana women’s prison has been found guilty of abuse of authority in sexually assaulting and raping inmates while working at the prison.

Gbenga Afolabi was arrested by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police and later in November 2021 the Marion County District Attorney’s Office charged him with 19 felonies.

On October 31, 2024, a jury found Afolabi guilty of five counts of sexual harassment, two counts of intimidation, three counts of official misconduct, and three counts of rape after a two-day jury trial.

Afolabi is expected to be sentenced for his crimes on November 11, 2024.

Which led to Afolabi’s arrest

According to court documents, in July 2021, investigators with the Indiana Department of Corrections learned that a woman at the prison filed a complaint that a corrections officer forced her to have sex with him twice in a staff bathroom.

Upon learning of this report, investigators discovered that Afolabi had forced four women to have sex with him several times over a four-month period.

Investigators began by reviewing prison surveillance footage showing Afolabi repeatedly entering a staff bathroom with two different women for several minutes before letting them leave when the hallway was empty, repeatedly entering the cell of a third women and took a fourth woman into the restroom, according to court documents.

After investigators obtained footage of Afolabi’s alleged wrongdoing, they began interviewing the women seen on the footage.

Investigators initially interviewed the woman who filed the complaint against Afolabi, and she explained to investigators that their sex was not consensual and that she was initially afraid to report him after he threatened to retaliate against her, according to court documents.

“No one was going to believe the inmate and not the officer,” she told investigators, according to court documents.

Her mother urged her to come forward after learning of the rape and the possibility that she might be pregnant, according to court documents.

After filing the complaint, the woman was sent to the hospital for a sexual assault test, which showed Afolabi’s DNA.

Investigators then interviewed other women in the video, who initially did not want to talk about Afolabi for fear that he or the department would retaliate against them.

But after calming down a little, the women told the investigators about what happened.

According to court documents, one woman told investigators she kept some of Afolabi’s sperm in a plastic bag after she was raped in her cell.

Investigators collected the evidence and sent it to the state police lab for DNA testing. Later verification revealed that it belonged to Afolaba.

Investigators confront Afolabi

On July 19, 2021, investigators met with Afolabi and asked if he had taken any of the women to the staff restroom.

Afolabi initially denied the allegations, but once investigators told him about the video, he changed his statement, according to court documents.

According to court documents, Afolabi explained that he took the women to the restroom to “get information” about what was going on in the unit.

Afolabi then told investigators that he had not had sexual relations with the women and that they could collect his DNA to demonstrate his innocence, according to court documents.

DNA samples collected from his saliva, a sexual assault kit and semen collected from one of the women showed “very strong support” that the DNA belonged to Afolaba, according to court records.

Contact IndyStar reporter Noe Padilla at [email protected] or follow him at X @1NoePadilla.