Crime & Safety

Former Stillwater Prison Worker Pleads Pleads Guilty to Sexual Relationship with Inmate

Yvonn Noemi Lerro-Miller was sentenced to serve 90 days in the Sentence to Serve program and 10 years of supervised probation after she was found guilty of having an ongoing sexual relationship with an inmate while a prison intern stood guard.

A former certified medical assistant at Stillwater prison pleaded guilty to criminal sex charges .

Yvonn Noemi Lerro-Miller, 38, of Osceola, Wis., will serve 90 days in Washington County’s Sentence to Serve program and be on supervised probation for 10 years after pleading guilty to fourth–degree criminal sexual conduct on Jan. 6 in Washington County District Court.

Judge Richard Ilkka also ordered Lerro-Miller to register as a predatory offender, take a mental health evaluation and follow the recommendations for treatment.

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One count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct was dismissed in a plea agreement.

Lerro-Miller was charged May 10 in Washington County District Court with two counts of criminal sexual conduct after having sex with an inmate with the goal of becoming pregnant—while a nursing intern stood guard.

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After several sexual encounters, court documents state Lerro-Miller became pregnant with the inmate’s unborn baby. A search of the inmate’s prison cell turned up photos and letters from Lerro-Miller, as well as an ultrasound photo of a fetus, the complaint states.

A few weeks later police learned Lerro-Miller had a miscarriage, the complaint states. The Bayport police chief obtained DNA samples from Lerro-Miller, the fetus and the inmate, which were sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis—and eventually revealed that the inmate was the father of the Lerro-Miller’s unborn child.

She was fired from her position at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Stillwater.

An investigation into the alleged sexual relationship between Lerro-Miller and the inmate began in September 2010 when corrections staff started monitoring her movements, contacts within the facility and phone calls—which led detectives to believe she was having a sexual relationship with the 32-year-old inmate who was not named in court documents.

Lerro-Miller told detectives her and the inmate had sex in exam room three while the nursing intern was at the nurses station and would cough or sometimes come into the room and say that there was another patient waiting. Lerro-Miller also told police the inmate gave her a container of semen and she inserted it into her vagina with a syringe.


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