COLUMBIA — Richland County’s jail director is still employed over a month after the county learned he was fired from his last job after being accused of asking women for sex.
The county hired Tyrell Cato at the beginning of July to run the troubled Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center without calling his previous employer, Kershaw County, or requesting his training history from a state agency.
Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown said Aug. 30 that there had not been any changes since his statement July 28, which said the county would investigate the situation. Brown declined to comment further because it was a personnel matter.
At the end of July, Brown was made aware Cato had been fired from being Kershaw County’s jail administrator. Cato, who makes $145,000 per year in Richland County, asked female officers for sex and made repeated inappropriate comments about their bodies, according to complaints the officers filed.
Cato denied the allegations in a written statement submitted as part of an investigation into his behavior. The Kershaw County Grievances Committee upheld Cato’s termination.
Cato has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
In the month since he was made aware of Cato’s termination, the county administrator has been quiet about Cato’s employment status. Brown instructed the public information office not to give updates on staff employment, spokesman Todd Money said in an email.
If Brown had requested Cato’s employment history from the state's Criminal Justice Academy when hiring him, it would not have shown Cato was fired from his previous job. An original report said Cato voluntarily resigned from Kershaw County to accept another position.
Kershaw County Administrator Danny Templar previously said he believed this “was an honest mistake.” The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating the incident. A SLED spokesperson could not provide any updates Aug. 31.
Cato's file has since been updated to reflect that he was fired. The most recent version of his file, updated Aug. 31, shows that he's still working at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
However, the content of the file was unknown to Richland County officials when they hired Cato. They did not submit a completed background check on Cato until Aug. 17, nearly a month after Cato began working in the jail on July 18, according to documents from the Criminal Justice Academy.
The background check says the jail's recruitment and retention officer contacted Kershaw County about the reason Cato left his job there but did not give a date as to when that happened.
Templar said a representative from Richland County called Aug. 23 — more than a month after the county hired Cato and weeks after administration learned of his termination.
On March 31, while Cato was still administrator for the Kershaw County jail, a sergeant at the time grabbed a handcuffed inmate by the neck and slammed them against the wall, according to the results of another SLED investigation. The sergeant, Steven Payne, then swept the inmate's legs, causing them to fall to the floor, despite the fact that the inmate did not pose a threat.
SLED agents arrested Payne on Aug. 25 on charges of assault and battery.
When Brown announced Cato’s hiring at a July 19 Richland County Council meeting, he and council members said they believed Cato would help fix a jail that has been plagued with issues for years.
The director before Cato, Ronaldo Myers, left his longtime position in September after emails showed he was on unapproved leave when a riot broke out that injured two officers and resulted in charges for a dozen inmates. Following the riot, the county introduced more security measures, such as body cameras, body scanners and a more secure parking lot.
An inspection that same month found the jail was understaffed and overcrowded. The county has tried to remedy the staffing issue by freezing 50 positions and raising its base pay to $40,000 per year.
A federal lawsuit filed in April alleges that the jail subjects mentally ill inmates to brutal conditions. Officers misused restraint chairs, used shower stalls as cells and put inmates in solitary confinement without reason, according to the lawsuit. It also says the section of the jail that houses these inmates is filled with mold, pests and standing water.
An inmate, Lason Butler, died in February after jail staff failed to give him adequate food and water, then denied him access to medical care, according to another federal lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges Butler was subject to similar conditions leading up to his death, such as having his water turned off and being bitten by rats.
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