Jail guard in Portland cleared of sex charge

PORTLAND — A jury deliberated less than two hours before acquitting a Cumberland County jail guard of charges that he gave an inmate cigarettes in return for sex.

“Thank God that’s over with,” Robert O’Malley, 59, said Thursday as he hugged family members after the verdict that ended the two-day trial.

O’Malley had spent more than two years fighting charges lodged by Jeanine Magryta, a woman characterized by defense witnesses as a liar.

Magryta, 34, told jurors she pleaded guilty in 1993 to using a knife to slash a 67-year-old Brunswick woman who took her off the streets and gave her a place to stay.

Testimony revealed that the woman had brought similar sex charges against a minister. And a doctor testified that O’Malley, a diabetic, was impotent at the time the woman claimed the sex occurred.

Characterizing the case as one of “total dishonesty” on Magryta’s part, O’Malley’s lawyer questioned why the state pursued charges against his client, a family man described as an unassuming, well-liked corrections officer.

“This case was so damn weak it’s just crazy,” said attorney Daniel G. Lilley. “They ended up crushing this guy based on the statements of a troubled woman who knew how to manipulate the system. This isn’t justice.”

Magryta is making the same allegations in a separate, $1 million civil lawsuit filed against O’Malley and Cumberland County. The suit is pending.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Marchese said the state pursued a case against O’Malley because prosecutors thought the allegations were serious and believable.

An internal affairs probe in the sheriff’s office had concluded O’Malley more likely than not had sex with Magryta.

Lilley claims O’Malley got little support from his superiors because he had backed an insurgent candidate who sought to unseat the sheriff.

O’Malley was suspended without pay after he was indicted and now works as an elevator operator. He said the cost of his defense left him deeply in debt.

On the witness stand Wednesday, Magryta told jurors O’Malley befriended her while she worked as a jail trustee, gave her coffee and candy and eventually asked her for sex in exchange for cigarettes. Magryta said she doesn’t smoke and gave the cigarettes to other inmates.

“I thought that he cared about me,” she said, adding that she reported the alleged incidents only after noticing that O’Malley had given cigarettes to another female inmate.

Under cross-examination, Magryta said she is an alcoholic who left her husband and child in New York and returned to Maine in 1993, ending up on the streets of Brunswick.

She said she turned for help to Dale Morell, pastor of the Maine Street Baptist Church. She moved in with Barbara Kendall, a parishioner who felt bad for her.