Georgia Deputy Warden and Guard Fired for Prisoner Sex Assaults, Second Guard Sentenced to 25 Years
by David M. Reutter
On November 4, 2024, former Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) guard Larenzo Cheeks, 25, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for having sex with three prisoners at Lee Arrendale State Prison—injuring one so badly that she required surgery. Earlier, DOC also fired Deputy Warden Alonzo McMillian, 44, and guard Lt. Russell Clark, 62, when both were arrested in May 2024 and charged with having sex with prisoners.
Cheeks was fired, too, when a prisoner accused him of rape in December 2022, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Feb. 2023, p.63.] He had been on the job just a few months when he told another prisoner, “You make me want to fuck you,” before pulling her into a hallway and ripping off her pants. He had a sexual relationship with a second prisoner during November 2022. He was finally fired after taking the third prisoner to a shower area, where he shoved her against a wall and penetrated her so violently that she required a partial hysterectomy.
That last victim, “Jane Doe,” filed suit in federal court for the Northern District of Georgia on February 22, 2024, accusing Cheeks of violating her civil rights when he “violently and forcibly raped her” on a solo escort to the shower, a task which ordinarily requires two guards. She also corroborated that Cheeks “verbally flirted” with other prisoners and passed them notes expressing sexual interest in them.
Before his sentencing, Cheeks was held without bond in Habersham County Jail and charged with rape. But Mountain Judicial Circuit Assistant District Attorney Rosanna Szabo cut a deal for the lesser plea when the prisoners declined to testify about their experience. Following his sentence, Cheeks must serve 35 years on probation. Judge William Oliver allowed the disgraced former guard to keep a photo of his young son only if “every time you look at that picture, you apologize to him for the man that you turned out to be.”
Two days later, “Doe” dismissed her suit, raising the question whether DOC refused to indemnify its former guard. Plaintiff was represented by attorneys Jeffrey Filipovits and Wingo F. Smith of Spears & Filipovits, LLC in Decatur. See: Doe v. Cheeks, USDC (N.D. Ga.), Case No. 2:24-cv-00036.
The other prison employees fired and charged with sexual assault of prisoners were higher ranking than Cheeks. DOC investigators accused Deputy Warden McMillian of an inappropriate relationship with an unnamed prisoner and having sex with her—ironically, on the same day that “Doe’s” lawsuit was filed. McMillian, whose career began as a guard with the state Department of Juvenile Justice in 2003, was booked into the Pulaski County Jail on May 2, 2024, and released the following day on a $10,000 bond.
Clark, whose career began in 1995, was accused of taking another unidentified prisoner between February 13 and 14, 2024, to an area away from surveillance cameras, where he fondled her breast and kissed her. He was booked into the Habersham County Jail on a $5,600 bond, but he was no longer on its inmate roster in November 2024.
Additional sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Now Habersham, WGTJ