Last week, a former corrections deputy at the Clark County Jail pled guilty to four counts of sexual assault on two inmates.
Christopher North, 31, of Vancouver entered his pleas on charges of indecent liberties without forcible compulsion, custodial sexual misconduct, voyeurism and indecent exposure Jan. 3 in Clark County Superior Court. The charges regarded two instances in 2017 where North had either exposed himself or had sexual contact with an inmate.
For the first incident, from March 2017, North pled guilty to the indecent exposure and voyeurism charges. According to a probable cause affidavit, he viewed an inmate changing while exposing himself from a vantage point outside of the room the inmate was in.
For the second incident, from July 2017, North pled guilty to the other charges which also involved an inmate changing. A probable cause affidavit detailed that he had entered the changing room after the inmate had dressed, having previously viewed her through an opening for documents while she changed, and after some discussion began to masturbate, pressing himself against the inmate and ejaculating.
North was initially charged with indecent liberties with forcible compulsion; he pled to the lesser charge of without forcible compulsion as part of an “in re barr” agreement where a defendant can plea guilty to a lesser charge for the benefit of a plea deal, per state law.
North was arrested for the charges in July 2017. Two weeks after his arrest he was fired from the Clark County Sheriff’s Office which oversees jail operations.
North’s sentencing is scheduled for February.
