By Thomas Farragher and Francie Latour, Globe Staff, 5/23/2001

here was morning sickness. And some bleeding. Her ''intuition'' told her that what she feared was true.

''I had a feeling,'' she said.

But in the summer of 1999 when Marcia Smith - imprisoned after chronic battles with alcohol and drugs - learned that she was pregnant after a sexual encounter with one of her guards, the 26-year-old East Boston woman wept uncontrollably.

''I cried for two weeks,'' said Smith, speaking out for the first time about her pregnancy, which roiled the Suffolk County House of Correction. ''I think I had a breakdown. I was trying to straighten my life out.

''I couldn't believe it. I felt bad for the baby. But then I said to myself: This is my baby. Forget the system. This is my baby.''

Marcia Smith is a pseudonym. The woman, who met with Globe reporters twice, would not allow her real name to be published, citing privacy concerns for her baby, a girl now 15 months old.

But her story is the most detailed account yet of a dysfunctional correctional institution in which guards allegedly coerced women in their care into acts that ranged from flashing, to fondling, to intercourse; a place where guards conspired with one another as lookouts and used a staff bathroom to have sex with her.

Smith said one officer, Robert Parise, who was later fired for sexual contact with her, began his advances with boorish comments unworthy of a maladjusted juvenile.

''He would make suggestive remarks,'' Smith said. ''He would pass me in the hallway. He'd grab me, and kiss me, and grope me. And he told me to stay behind for lunch.''

In a federal lawsuit filed last month against the Suffolk County Sherrif's Department under the name Jane Doe, Smith said that beginning in December 1998, she and Parise had oral sex at least once and sexual intercourse at least three times.

Once, she alleges in her lawsuit, Parise's colleague, Officer Richard Powers, served as a lookout. Powers, too, has since been fired.

''If I said no, [Parise] could lock me in,'' Smith said. ''He could put me in the hole. He could tell other officers that `she was giving me a hard time.' It's already bad in there and they can make it worse.''

Smith, who was released in 1999, accuses the guards and Sheriff Richard J. Rouse of civil rights violations. Besides Parise, Rouse fired three other guards - David Mojica, David DiCenso, and Powers - for alleged sexual misconduct.

The guards, through their attorneys, have denied all charges of wrongdoing.

Anthony J. Antonellis, Smith's attorney, said the power wielded by guards - who control when prisoners eat, when they sleep, when they get tampons, and whether they get time out of their cells - means there can be no such thing as consensual sex across the divide of prison bars.

''We believe there were more officers involved and also more inmates involved in the unlawful activities,'' Antonellis said. ''We also believe, and will show, that the supervisors knew about such activities and clearly looked the other way. The ultimate responsibility for the unlawful activities rests with the sheriff himself.''

Rouse's spokesman, Richard M. Lombardi, has said the department will fight the Jane Doe lawsuit, arguing that the guards alone are responsible for the alleged yearlong sexual misconduct, not Rouse or his administration.

Smith grew up in East Boston in a blue-collar family. She was largely protected by a wide net of family and parochial-school ties. But by age 13, she had had her first drink and from then on, ''drinking became a problem,'' she said.

In 1992, at age 18, she had her first child, a boy, with a longtime boyfriend from Revere. But before her son was a toddler, the father disappeared, and Smith's life began to unravel: First a flurry of motor vehicle charges, then drunk driving, and ultimately drug charges.

She arrived at South Bay in early 1998, after being convicted of selling narcotics to an undercover police officer. Soon afterward, she would awaken in her cell at 7 a.m. to find a guard sitting in a chair just feet away, leering at her.

Within a month, Smith charges in her lawsuit, Correction Officer DiCenso became the first of three guards to engage in sexual activity with her in prison. DiCenso's actions included kissing, fondling, and ultimately digital penetration, she alleges in her suit.

According to another inmate, Karen Passanisi, who served time with Smith, DiCenso came to be known as ''Diamond Dave.''

''He seemed nice,'' Smith said of DiCenso, who also lost his job in the sex scandal. ''He'd talk about East Boston, his social life.''

Initially, the guard passed along small favors. He allowed her to keep the lights on in her cell after the mandatory ''lights-out'' time. He brought her Chinese food, no small favor for inmates tethered to the prison's otherwise bland daily menu.

After obliging DiCenso, she said: ''They treated me better. I was hardly ever locked in.''

Smith said DiCenso allowed her to watch television with him in the guard area outside of her cell.

''I could go out there and they would warn each other when the white shirts [supervisors] would show up,'' Smith said. When superiors made their rounds, Smith said, the television would be shut off and the area straightened up.

She recalled one incident when she was stranded too far from her cell to return in time for a supervisor's entrance. DiCenso urgently directed her to an area behind a set of weights in the unit's common area.

''He said, `You better hide,''' she told the Globe.

Her first sexual encounter with the father of her prison-conceived child, Officer Mojica, occurred in April 1999. Smith alleges that Mojica forced her to have sexual intercourse in her cell on the 11th floor. She collected Mojica's semen on a towel, which, according to her lawsuit, was later tested at a crime laboratory.

Two months later, she said, Mojica was back.

''If you do what you're told, you won't be locked down,'' Smith said. ''If you do what they want, everything's fine. If you put up a fight, it's not worth it.''

Early this month, Smith received an official notice of Mojica's paternity of her daughter. The state Department of Revenue's child support enforcement division said that blood tests show a 99.966 percent probability that Mojica is the father.

Douglas I. Louison, an attorney for the officers fired for alleged sexual misconduct with Smith, said he could not comment on the paternity claim. But he denied all the allegations the officers face and said they would be vindicated as they seek to win back their jobs in closed hearings.

''Our view is the sheriff overreacted to outside influences and simply terminated his employees without real due process,'' Louison said.

Smith, who was alternately emotional and defiant during two interviews, said she is now six months pregnant with her third child, fathered by her fiance who, she said, plans to adopt the daughter she had by Mojica.

This story ran on page A27 of the Boston Globe on 5/23/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.