Female Rikers Island CO Charged with Rape After Romancing Inmate

The turbulent relationship between a female correction officer and a Rikers Island inmate came to a definitive end Saturday after the woman admitted to having sexual relations with him in a jail closet. Nicole Bartley, 30, is also set to be suspended for the 70 grams of marijuana found at her Bronx home, drugs intended for the unidentified prisoner. She's since been released on $1,000 bail. "I, Nicole, being a fool had my guard down to this man I thought [I] was falling in love with. I was in love with him. He used me and played me for a fool," she told investigators. "I had sex with him on one occasion in the jail a few days before Jan. 30. I used a condom. It was in the closet in the morning when everyone else was locked in. It only lasted five minutes."

The Department of Investigations drug-sniffing dog, Gunner, led detectives to Bartley, according to DOI Commissioner Mark Peters. Being that the inmate cannot legally consent to sex, she was hit with a third-degree rape charge on top of charges for promoting prison contraband and conspiring to traffic marijuana. Bartley became the 26th employee at the George R. Vierno Center jail to be arrested since 2014, the year the DOI began an undercover operation to uncover corruption.