Lynsey Runyon
LAWRENCE CO. – A good number of Lawrence and Richland County residents have expressed dismay over the turn of events in the case of an IDOC employee alleged to have had a baby with an inmate under her care.
A resolution to the case, which was filed earlier this year, saw the situation of Custodial Sexual Misconduct being reduced to a simple Battery charge, to which former IDOC nurse Lynsey R. Runyon, 31, entered a plea at a regularly-scheduled pretrial hearing on August 23.
The case was filed as a felony (Custodial Sexual Misconduct) on February 15 of this year, after Runyon gave birth to a child (reportedly in January) and blood tests were ostensibly conducted to determine its paternity.
The whole thing was reportedly prompted by information supplied by one Brandon Garecht, 28, a Wisconsin felon who got hemmed up in Illinois and was sent to Lawrence Correctional Center, where Runyon, a married mother of two, was employed in the medical wing.
Garecht had expressed his desire to “be in his child’s life” and, since he’d been incarcerated for a number of years with no conjugal visits, his remarks were considered odd and he was questioned. He advised that he’d had sex with Runyon while at the prison – ostensibly while he was “seeing the nurse” for something – and the investigation was on. The child was born early this year and, by all accounts, is being raised by Runyon’s husband Jason Runyon as his own.
Runyon lawyered up with Lou Viverito, who apparently was able to pave the way that many attorneys are able to pave for an alleged sex offender when the victim isn’t someone underage: He was able to get the charge reduced to something that might, under the law, make sense, but in practice, is completely senseless – simple Battery.
The new charge is a misdemeanor, which, as a conviction, doesn’t blot her record as badly as a felony. However, under the circumstances, the charge seems ridiculous: “That between the months of January and March 2016, at Lawrence Correctional Center…Runyon committed the offense of Battery in that she made physical contact of an insulting nature with Brandon Garecht, in that she placed her hands on Brandon Garecht.”
Under the law, “placing hands” on a person constitutes battery if it’s done knowingly and in an offensive manner (“insulting nature.”) When “placing of hands on” a person can have the end result of getting pregnant, it appears Illinois law needs rewritten.
However, because it happened in Lawrence County, and because part of prosecutor Michael Strange’s job description under the former prosecutor, Lisa Wade, several years back, was to handle the multitude of cases filed by LCC inmates, it appears that Strange is deferring to the prison…and what happened in Runyon’s case was embarrassing for the agency.
That might have been the very reason the Illinois State Police not only conducted the investigation into the matter, but also why they kept documents out of the file that might explain the debacle and thus, keeps them away from public scrutiny.
Discovery compliance documents filed by Strange only outline the process and items submitted, and don’t provide much by way of explanation.
However, those documents, filed March 21 of this year, do show that there are plenty of reports filed by ISP, these dating back to June and July of last year, when she would have been visibly pregnant.
Also revealing is the fact that IDOC apparently did a shakedown of Garecht’s cell on June 7, which might have turned up the original information that Garecht was looking to “have a relationship with his child.”
As well, other inmates may have been aware of the incident, as the names “Inmates K. Harris, J. Hernandez and B. Garecht” appeared as having been interviewed on June 7, 2016; and perhaps another IDOC employee, “L. Watts,” was interviewed on May 27 of that year, as documents show.
Most of the interviewing of Runyon occurred in Richland County (where she resides) at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, but Richland County didn’t have any documents available because, as noted, ISP was in charge of the investigation.
Whether it was by Viverito’s expertise, the “Runyon” name in the area (which has pull), or the utter embarrassment produced for IDOC with the matter, the largest part of the case remains unexplained to the public and it’s probably intended to be that way and stay that way, despite the inequity of such a situation.
Runyon’s punishment for the misdemeanor is 12 months conditional discharge.
The conditions are that for the period, she shall not violate any criminal statute or ordinance of any jurisdiction, and pay a fine of $1,250. Her bond of $1,500 was transferred to pay that amount…and with that, the case was over.
While all sex cases are different, apparently, those that involve state agencies are going to be treated with kid gloves; regular taxpaying citizens who fund these agencies are raked over the coals. Anyone charged with something similar in the future needs to tell their attorney they want this case held up as the standard by which judgments should be made…since effectively, this is now case law.