MUNCY – For the third time in two months, an employee or one with a close association with the state Correctional Institution at Muncy has been charged with having an inappropriate relationship with an inmate, according to an investigator with the state Department of Corrections.

First it was a corrections officer, then a medical doctor and now a licensed practical nurse who works in the prison’s infirmary has been arrested on charges of having a sexual relationship with an inmate at the all-women’s prison on Route 405 in Clinton Township, the investigator said.

Thomas Eugene Wakefield, 32, has been charged with institutional sexual assault and official oppression for allegedly “engaging in indecent contact with an inmate on at least two occasions between March 21 and April 30,” Special Agent Suzanne K. Hobart said in an affidavit.

“Beginning in December, Wakefield began engaging in personal conversations with the inmate, including exchanging personal notes with her multiple times a week,” Hobart said.

From the inmate’s cell, prison staff seized more than 60 handwritten notes allegedly written by Wakefield on May 1, Hobart said, adding that many of the notes were signed “SQ,” which stood for Wakefield’s nickname, “Sasquatch.”

In many of the notes, Wakefield shared personal family information with the inmate.

The inmate reported Wakefield “eventually hugged, kissed and fondled her” in the prison’s infirmary, Hobart alleged.

On at least two occasions, Wakefield had inappropriate contact with the inmate in the basement of the infirmary, the investigators said.

Following his recent arraignment before District Jon E. Kemp, Wakefield, of Loyalsock Township, was released on $50,000 bail.

In separate investigations, Dr. Donald James Stone, 63, of Bloomsburg, and corrections officer Mark D. Hoover, 45, of Lewisburg, were charged last month with allegedly having inappropriate sexual relations with inmates. Both are free on bail.