Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — A former librarian who confessed to having sexual relations with an inmate inside the State Correctional Institution at Retreat was sentenced in Luzerne County Court on Friday.
Judge Michael T. Vough sent Karen Louise Stroup, 45, of Berwick, to prison for three to 23 months on a single count of institutional sexual assault. Stroup pleaded guilty to the charge March 12.
Stroup must register her address with state police for 15 years under the state’s Megan’s Law as a convicted sexual offender. She was awarded immediate work release.
According to the criminal complaint:
Stroup admitted to the prison’s deputy superintendent, Kevin Ransom, on July 28 that she was having inappropriate touching with an inmate.
When she was questioned by police, Stroup claimed to have a sexual attraction toward the inmate. She admitted to having sex with the inmate between June 10, 2017, and July 27, 2017. She noted they would go inside the prison’s library to perform oral sex on each other.
The inmate told state police that Stroup approached him on June 8, 2017, to work in the library, and he was hired two days later. The sexual encounters began that same day.
State police said the inmate claimed the sex acts occurred in the library, a closet and in Stroup’s office.
The inmate, 38, was sentenced in Lebanon County in December 1998 to 20 to 60 years in prison on arson-related charges, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.