COLUMBUS, OHIO (BNO NEWS) – A former prison guard was convicted on Tuesday for forcing inmates to have sex with him in an employee bathroom a women's prison in Marysville, Ohio, the Columbus Dispatcher newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Willie E. Mapp, 54, was a corrections officer at the Ohio Reformatory for Women from 1997 until July 2003. He was charged with eight counts of sexual battery, a third degree felony.

Mapp, a Columbus resident, resigned to his post after an investigation was launched in 2003 after reports of prisoners' abuse at the Marysville correction facility.

The former corrections officer allegedly threatened three female inmates with severe consequences such as solitary confinement if they did not perform oral sex. The offenses took place at the employee bathroom of the Ohio Reformatory.

Initially, Mapp was charged with 13 counts of sexual battery, however investigators had a hard time identifying and locating all the victims and five charges had to be dropped last year.

He was taken into custody after the verdict and no date for sentencing was set. Mapp faces up to 40 years in prison in case he is given the maximum sentence on all counts.

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