SERCC Worker Charged For Sex With Inmate

Michelle A. Jackson

Dearborn County Law Enforcement Center

(Lawrenceburg, Ind.) – A corrections officer is accused of having a sexual relationship with a Dearborn County inmate, sometimes picking him up from work release so the two could have sex.

Michelle A. Jackson, a South East Regional Community Corrections employee, was arrested February 17, charged with Sexual Misconduct by a Service Provider, a Class C felony punishable by two to eight years in prison.

SERCC officials contacted Dearborn County Special Crimes Unit investigators January 31 when they learned of the relationship Jackson, 33, was having with Eric Coleman.

According to a court affidavit, Jackson met Coleman as the two took smoke breaks outside the SERCC office in Lawrenceburg, Coleman told investigators. The conversation turned flirtatious, eventually leading to sexually explicit text messages between the two.

Coleman stated Jackson would pick him up at his work release employer, Lawrenceburg Chevrolet. The first of three encounters between the two occurred in November at Coleman’s home on Georgetown Road. His mother arrived home as the two ended their encounter.

His mother told investigators she was suspicious because the sheets on her son’s bed were "extremely disheveled.” Suspicious because she had made the bed earlier that day.

A second encounter occurred when Coleman was out on laundry duty at a laundromat on Front Street in Lawrenceburg. Jackson came to the laundromat in her minivan, where the two had sex again.

The third meeting again took place in the driveway of Coleman’s parents’ home after Coleman had began an intensive home incarceration program on December 5.

Home incarceration inmates are tracked on their proximity to their home with electronic devices, which Jackson allegedly tampered with.

“Coleman stated that at the time Jackson received an alert advising that Coleman was outside his allowed perimeter... …Coleman advised that Jackson then stated that she would just increase his perimeter,” detectives wrote in the affidavit.

It is unclear if Coleman will face charges in connection with the sexual relationship with the corrections officer.