Aug 18, 2021 1 min read

A corrections officer at the State Correctional Institution at Fayette in Luzerne Township has been charged with having sexual contact with an inmate.

Melanie Nicole Lewis, 40, of Lemont Furnace was charged with institutional sexual assault, obstructing administration of law or other government and official oppression before on-call Magisterial District Judge Michael Metros on Monday.

Authorities said they searched the cell of a male inmate in May and found a flip cellphone. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Bureau of Investigations and Intelligence conducted a forensic analysis on the phone and discovered numerous images of the inmate and a woman with dark hair performing a sex act on him.

The woman in the photographs was wearing a gray Department of Corrections-issued corrections officer uniform shirt and a black vest. She also wore a radio-speaker microphone attached to her shirt and a keystone arm patch was seen on her shirt.

The images also showed the background from inside of a correctional facility.

Lewis was identified as the alleged woman in the images found on the phone.

Lewis is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Mike Defino Jr. at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 1.

She is free on $50,000 unsecured bond.