Criminal investigation underway after Harris County sheriff's sergeant was allegedly 'sexually assaulted'

Total bond of $3.5 million has been set for a man charged with sexually assaulting a Harris County sheriff’s sergeant in her office.

Jeremiah Williams, 27, is facing four charges – two new ones for assaulting and attacking the sheriff’s sergeant in an administrative office of a jail facility and two previous ones for attacking two women at a park (for which he was originally jailed), KHOU-TV Houston said. Williams ambushed and assaulted the sergeant after he left, unescorted, a Bible study on Dec. 6.

“Today, one of our HCSO teammates reported she was sexually assaulted by a man held in our jail,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Facebook on the day of the attack. “I’m devastated to think of the pain she endured, and I’m committed to supporting a thorough investigation that brings her justice. Please join me in praying for my courageous colleague’s physical and emotional healing.”

Concerns about letting inmates walk freely around a jail facility have been lodged against the sheriff, with Jeffrey Fred Wiesinger among those asking Gonzalez on Facebook how a crime like this could happen.

“Where was the breakdown here, was it a procedural failure?” Wiesinger said on Facebook. “I would recommend a safety stand down with all HCSO teammates to discuss the risks associated with inmate interaction followed up with an emergency deep dive into policies and procedures related to inmate exposure.”

A criminal investigation and internal investigation are underway, Gonzalez said in a YouTube video of a news conference.

“Most jails do allow some level of open movement. This person was on his floor and had not left his floor. That’s not necessarily uncommon,” Gonzalez said in the video. “There are different levels of restrictions that may be in place, depending on the inmate’s classification. We have, in my opinion, just a bad actor that took advantage of an opening, saw perhaps a gap in the system and manipulated that to his advantage and at the end of the day committed a very serious and heinous crime.”