A civil lawsuit has been filed by a former Barton County inmate against Barton County, its sheriff, and a jailer.

The suit filed on July 16 by Tiffany Damota, alleges while being held in the Barton County Jail, she suffered through conditions described as “depraved, deplorable and inhumane” and says she was raped by a jailer who was employed during the events listed in the suit.

The Barton County Sheriff is listed in the suit because among many things, Damota claims when she made complaints about the conditions about the jail, Sheriff L. Mitchell Shaw received them but never read them.

The case has been filed in the United State District Court for the Western District of Missouri.

Damota first found herself in the Barton County Jail in September of 2018 with a charge of Tampering with a Motor Vehicle. She says female inmates were kept locked in the basement of the jail, and that basement, according to the suit, had or has no fresh air circulation, air conditioning, or active heat. The suit says if there was any air conditioning, it was not working properly, and female inmates shared one box fan.

It’s also mentioned that beds were scarce in this basement and many slept on a mat on a concrete floor.

According to the lawsuit, Damota and other female inmates who were locked in this area had no running water, no running toilet, and no sink. Inmates were told they could only use a restroom with running water for one hour a day.

The suit says Damota and other inmates were given pitchers of iced tea and water to drink daily.

However, Damota claims female inmates also had to use those pitchers to urinate and defecate in throughout the day. Those pitchers would be cleaned by inmates and then jailers would fill them up the next day saying they were “bleached”.

Female inmates were seldom allowed to shower. The lawsuit says female jailers are the only ones allowed to escort female prisoners to showers, and claims the only female jailer would say she was too busy with other things and as a result Damota says she was allowed one shower in an eleven day span.

Nearing the end of Damota’s first stint in the Barton County Jail, Damota says she started to learn from others about a male jailer, Antonio Azua, who the lawsuit says created a bartering system, offering female inmates various luxuries such as snacks, showers, or more and in exchange, female prisoners would expose themselves to him or do sexual related favors.

Damota says she asked Azua for a pop tart and Azua told her to ask another female inmate how he “worked”.

Near the end of September 2018, Damota posted bond and was released from the Barton County Jail pending her return to court.

And the end of October 2018, Damota went back to Barton County with her two children for a court appearance and was late. The lawsuit says she was told a warrant would be issued for her arrest, and not wanting to be arrested in front of her children, Damota went back to Oklahoma.

Damota was arrested on a warrant for failing to appear and found herself back in the Barton County Jail in December of 2018 for ten days.

According to the lawsuit, the conditions of the jail had barely changed if at all. And being it was now December; temperatures were often very cold in the basement and Damota says inmates were given one blanket and all shared one space heater.

The suit says Azua would escort Damota and other female inmates to take showers more regularly compared the time she was first jailed, which is against the aforementioned rule about only female jailers being allowed to do that.

Damota says Azua would watch her shower and felt this was the only option or to not shower at all.

She goes on to say she got to shower almost every other day, only under the requirement that Azua watch her.

In mid-December 2018, Damota pled guilty to her charges and was placed on probation. Damota was told even though she is an Oklahoma resident, she would have to stay in Missouri until cleared by her probation officer.

The suit says because Damota had no identification and nowhere to stay in Missouri, she felt she was unable to stay in the state and returned to Oklahoma.

At the end of January of 2019, Damota was incarcerated for a third time in the Barton County Jail for a probation violation. She would be in the jail until March 28, 2019.

Damota says the conditions remained relatively the same from the first two times she was jailed.

The lawsuit says Azua began to get more forward, “bargaining” for sexual favors with Damota, requiring her and other female inmates to expose private parts for things like snacks and cigarettes.

According the suit, Azua would continue to escort Damota to get a shower and continued watching her shower. Damota says after the shower, she would have get dressed in front of him.

Damota says during one shower, Azua reached into the shower, and rubbed her back with a rag. She says when she told him to stop, he pushed her against the shower wall and continued, saying “I’m the guard, you’re the inmate. I don’t know why you don’t just bend over.”

The suit says Azua would talk to Damota sometimes about his sex life with his wife, saying they had an open marriage and his wife had given him chlamydia. Azua then allegedly tells Damota he discussed her with his wife and said to Damota, since she may not be able to go back to Oklahoma for a while, she should live with them on the condition she engage in group sex.

Damota says in the suit, that there were occasions when she would be showering, Azua would touch her and kiss her, but got him to stop by convincing him it would be too risky to do that with other inmates around. Azua allegedly told her, “You’re right. We’ll do it later. You know you like it.”

The suit says a phone was given to inmates without a charger. It’s unclear who gave the inmates the phone. Damota says Azua told her he’d give her a charger if she’d let him touch her chest and other parts outside of her clothing. She says she wanted to talk to her kids, especially since she missed her daughter’s birthday, so she agreed.

In February of 2019, the suit says Azua took Damota to the basement under the idea of having her help make breakfast.

Azua had Damota’s feet shackled and her hands connected to a belly chain around her waist.

The lawsuit says Azua took Damota to a dark room and raped her while she was shackled, telling her “You want this.”

The next day, the cell phone was found, and an investigation began.

Damota says she told Sheriff Shaw she had been raped by Azua and requested she be taken to a doctor for a rape exam and be tested for STD’s. She says the Sheriff told her a rape exam would not be useful.

Days after the rape, Damota began displaying symptoms of an STD. After several requests to be taken to a hospital to jailers and the Sheriff, she was finally taken to one and tested positive for chlamydia.

Damota says many inmates informed other jailers of Azua’s habit of escorting women to their shower, in which one jailer acknowledged he was doing that and that it was wrong.

Damota says she made many written complaints about the conditions of the jail in December 2018. She says no one on the jail’s staff came to her to discuss the complaints and no changes were made.

She allegedly made the more written complaints in early 2019.

Damota says she was told that Azua is the one that reads the complaints and determines what to do about them and she decided writing complaints were futile.

As mentioned before, Damota says she learned the Sheriff had received complaints but never read them, and no changes were made about the conditions because of the complaints themselves.

The lawsuit says Damota was put in an isolation cell for nearly one week after disclosing the rape.

She was released from the Barton County Jail in March of 2019 and charged $1,851.56 for what Barton County calls the “cost of incarceration”.

Azua was charged in February of last year for one count of sexual contact with a prisoner/offender and that charge was amended to first degree rape.

Many requests of records were made for documents relevant to Sheriff Shaw and according the suit, Shaw has refused to produce any of those requested documents.

The suit says the Sheriff did not train Azua and other jailers on how to properly treat female inmates nor properly supervise jailers or employees.

At the time this story was written, Sheriff Shaw could not be reached for comment, but if a comment is made, this story will be updated.

The attorney’s office representing Azua in his criminal case offered no comment and specifically said they could not confirm or deny if they would be representing Azua in this lawsuit.

KTTS News contacted the presiding commissioner in Barton County and left a message. If a comment is made, this story will be updated.

You can read a copy of the suit filed here.