A prison maintenance officer has been found guilty of indecently assaulting and raping a female inmate “repeatedly and forcefully so it hurt” – and been immediately remanded in custody.
On Monday, and after less than 2 ½ hours of deliberation, a District Court jury of six men and six women unanimously found Enio Screpanti guilty of two sexual offences at the Adelaide Women’s Prison at Northfield.
Jurors told Judge Anne Barnett they had also found, unanimously, that Screpanti abused his position of power or authority over the woman to commit his offending, aggravating his culpability.
Screpanti shook his head as the verdicts were announced while his wife, daughters – who work for the RAAF, Department of Child Protection and as a nurse – and his son-in-law, a former SA Police detective, comforted one another.
They cried, and audibly gasped, when Judge Barnett refused to allow Screpanti to remain in the community and revoked his bail.
“In the circumstances of the offence for which he’s now been convicted by the jury, I don’t think it’s appropriate he remain on bail … bail will be revoked,” she said.
Screpanti, 67, of Hillbank, pleaded not guilty to one aggravated count of indecent assault and one count of rape.
At trial, prosecutor Christine Hanna alleged the offences occurred inside the prison in 2020 and 2021.
She alleged the indecent assault occurred first, with Screpanti indecently touching the inmate over her clothes after directing her to walk on a treadmill in the prison gym.
Ms Hanna alleged the rape occurred subsequently, after Screpanti directed the inmate into a maintenance shed on the prison grounds.
“He said ‘pull your pants down’ to which she initially said no … he seemed angry with her, which made her afraid, and she did it,” she said.
“He had her bend over (and sexually assaulted her) repeatedly and forcefully so it hurt.”
She further alleged the “background and context” of those incidents could be judged based on the evidence of two other inmates, Nicole McGuinness and a fraudster who cannot be named.
However Gilbert Aitken, for Screpanti, suggested those women’s evidence was unreliable.
He cross-examined McGuinness over her conviction for murdering a transgender woman, cutting up and burning her body, and seeking to hide her crime from authorities.
He further suggested the fraudster’s account was not “safe to accept” given her “adult convictions for deliberate dishonesty” and “lies told to obtain money”.
By its verdict on Monday, jurors rejected Mr Aitken’s submissions, unanimously finding Ms Hanna had proven the allegations beyond reasonable doubt.
Mr Aitken asked sentencing submissions be adjourned for six weeks in order to obtain a psychological report.
“This man has one prior (offence) 14 years ago, he’s been an exceptional person,” he said.
Judge Barnett remanded Screpanti in custody to face sentencing submissions in September.