This story was published in partnership with LOOKOUT News.
asserted
story → publish → News
Rumors were spreading for weeks in the spring of 2022.
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Rumors → spread → 2022
At Arizona State Prison–Marana, the talk centered on an employee of Management and Training Corporation, or MTC, the Utah-based for-profit prison company that ran the facility.
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that → center → facility
A clerk at the commissary, Alicia Simmons, had been carrying on an illicit sexual relationship with an incarcerated person.
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clerk → carry → person
In April, the situation exploded onto the radars of top prison officials.
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situation → explode → officials
A fight broke out between two prisoners that two former MTC employees who spoke to LOOKOUT and The Intercept later said was over Simmons.
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who → break → Simmons
After the fracas, according to a state-level investigation, Simmons admitted to having sex, sometimes four times a week, with an incarcerated person.
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Simmons → accord → person
She was let go by MTC and served with a search warrant for her phone and car.
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She → let → phone
The Arizona Department of Corrections Special Investigations Unit conducted an official probe.
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Unit → conduct → probe
According to an internal report on the sexual abuse allegations filed at the prison in the wake of the affair, a high-ranking prison guard at the detention facility prepared a “PREA packet,” an initial recitation of allegations and evidence made in compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
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guard → accord → Act
The PREA packet cleared the way for information about the allegations to become public: Its existence would be noted the following year in a legally mandated PREA audit.
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existence → clear → audit
The audits must be published by all carceral facilities covered by the law at least once every three years and must list all incidents and allegations of sexual contact between staff and incarcerated people.
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audits → publish → staff
And yet, a year later, Marana’s PREA audit said nothing about the allegations against Simmons.
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audit → say → Simmons
Now, a former employee of MTC who worked at the Marana prison is speaking out for the first time about what top officials at the facility knew ahead of the PREA audit’s publication.
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officials → work → publication
The whistleblower, Alex Randall, told LOOKOUT and The Intercept that he had direct conversations about the sexual abuse allegations with the warden, other officials, and Simmons herself.
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he → tell → warden
Randall said he was not the only MTC employee the warden discussed the matter with.
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warden → say → matter
“I was sitting in with my manager, me, and the warden when the warden told us all about what happened,” Randall said of the day Simmons was issued a warrant and let go from her position.
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Simmons → sit → position
Randall’s account — including of what prison leadership knew about the allegations — was corroborated by another former employee at Marana with direct knowledge of the warden’s conversations.
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leadership → include → conversations
The second former employee spoke to LOOKOUT and The Intercept on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
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employee → speak → retaliation
An Arizona Department of Corrections Information Report prepared by a prison staffer on the day of the incident also said information about allegations of sexual contact between a staffer and an incarcerated person was provided to the warden.
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information → prepare → warden
The incarcerated person denied having sex with Simmons, according to a later Department of Corrections investigation, and Simmons was not referred to outside law enforcement for criminal prosecution.
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Simmons → deny → prosecution
Despite widespread knowledge of the allegations and the official paper trail, the warden at the time — Jeremy Casey, who is listed as the primary contact in the audit — verified in the published report there were no reported incidents of sexual abuse or harassment.
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who → list → abuse
(Simmons, MTC, Casey, and the Arizona Department of Corrections did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
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Simmons → respond → comment
One was from August 2022 about an employee allegedly kissing an incarcerated person and having an email correspondence with him that was “sexual in nature.”
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that → kiss → nature
In another case, just weeks before the 2023 PREA audit was conducted, the corrections department’s Criminal Investigative Unit conducted interviews about an allegation that a prison guard had encouraged an incarcerated person to perform oral sex.
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guard → conduct → sex
Those allegations also should have appeared on the subsequent PREA audit but did not.
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allegations → appear → audit
In 2023, Arizona State Prison–Marana was closed and languished in dormancy until it was sold to back to MTC in 2025 — just as the Department of Homeland Security was looking for more bed space to detain immigrants.
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Department → close → immigrants
Reopening as ICE Camp
Randall’s insider account of the lapse in PREA reporting and other conditions are resurfacing Marana’s checkered history at a critical moment for the prison.
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account → reopen → prison
Last year, after selling the prison back to MTC, the Marana facility is slated to reopen as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.
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facility → sell → center
Federal officials, according to government documents, want to nearly triple the prison’s capacity to roughly 1,300 beds, according to a Department of Homeland Security floodplain notice.
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officials → accord → notice
It is unknown when the prison is set to reopen.
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prison → set → ?
“ICE is pursuing all available options to expand detention bedspace capacity, including partnerships with state and local governments to house detainees at existing facilities,” Fernando X. Burgos, a public affairs officer for ICE, told LOOKOUT and The Intercept.
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Burgos → pursue → LOOKOUT
The plan is facing significant oppositions from local residents and officials who say they are being cut out of any oversight for reopening the prison.
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they → face → prison
Critics of the plan say the failure of MTC to properly deal with the sexual abuse allegations and other problems, including those stemming from what insiders say were staffing and resource issues, raise serious questions about the company’s future running a massive immigration detention center at the same location.
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insiders → say → location
By their nature, private prisons, which cut costs for the sake of their bottom lines, are predisposed to the types of conditions that can lead to abuses like sexual misconduct and encourage shoddy reporting by officials, critics of the Marana facility argued.
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critics → cut → facility
“The whole business model is taking an inherently expensive proposition — the care and feeding of thousands of people, the running of a small city — and skimming a profit off the top,” said Caroline Isaacs, the executive director of Just Communities Arizona, a nonprofit working on criminal justice reform; she is also a member of Pima Resists ICE, known as PRICE, which opposes reopening the prison as an ICE camp.
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which → take → camp
Isaacs pointed to wider allegations about other MTC facilities, including in Arizona, and said local activists are “very familiar with the terrible track record of MTC.”
She added, “It’s baked into the business model of for-profit incarceration.”
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It → point → incarceration
“Holy Shit, I’m Fucked”
Randall, who took the job as an accounting clerk at the Marana prison in June 2021, said Simmons exhibited odd behavior as soon as he met her.
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he → ’m → her
He said he saw her emerge from the commissary area “sweating bullets,” even during cool months, despite having no obvious physically straining work to account for it.
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her → say → it
Then, in April 2022, Randall said he was standing outside alone when Simmons came rushing toward him.
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Simmons → say → him
…and 123 more, not listed.
The Aporia
