Fayette Juvenile Detention Center worker’s texts with female inmate under criminal investigation

Lexington, Ky.–The Lexington Police Department is investigating after officials at the Fayette Regional Juvenile Detention Center found a former employee’s text messages with an underage female inmate questionable, according to a Herald Leader report. The facility is located on Spurr Road in Lexington.

Darren Stevenson, 29, quit his job at the facility in April after being suspended pending an investigation earlier in the year.

In October, investigators filed a report they say shows evidence Stevenson “engaged in sexual activity that encouraged the use of a youth for the sexual gratification of himself or another,” according to the Herald Leader.

Stevenson allegedly asked the girl for her social media passwords so he could download nude photos of her from the accounts and sell them online. On her phone, they found photographs of her nude and in lingerie, along with a “price list” for various pictures. The girl told investigators she and Stevenson were going to charge people for the pics, but then not send them.

The investigation started in December when, according to LPD, Stevenson gave girls at the juvenile facility his phone and asked them to take nude photos of themselves in the bathroom. Girls there said he was a “pervert” and a “weirdo.”

During the investigation, another girl told cops that Stevenson had allegedly “licked her breasts.”

Those two incidents were ruled unsubstantiated by officials, and Stevenson would not have faced any discipline at all if not for the evidence found on the other girl’s phone.

Stevenson had run-ins with discipline before. In 2019 he was suspended for one day after he asked a girl, “If I ever see you at the bars, are you going to let me buy you a drink?”

Juvenile Detention facilities in Kentucky are run by the Department of Juvenile Justice. They are currently under-staffed and have had frequent safety issues lately. Kentucky is set to open a female-only juvenile detention center in Northern Kentucky soon.