NC prison guard charged with having sex with inmate

BERTIE COUNTY, NC-Windsor police say former prison guard Tameka Mebane arranged her own type of conjugal visits at Bertie Correctional Institution. Officers tell 13News she started up a relationship with an inmate, possibly in October of last year, and that the relationship resulted in pregnancy. Mebane admits she was seeing a prisoner. "I'm only human," she says. "Everybody makes mistakes or, whatever, you know, and um, this thing it's way bigger than me." Mebane, who started working at the prison when it opened in 2006, claims the inmate is not the father of her child, even though Sgt Ricky Morris with the Windsor Police Department says she confessed. "Well, the question was actually asked were they in a relationship together, and, um, I was told, 'Yes,' and then the question was asked was her child, or soon-to-be child, um, was it the inmate's, in fact, and she said, 'Yes.'" "I didn't confess to anything," Mebane argues. "He assuming. The rumor was out saying I was pregnant before I even knew I was pregnant." Investigators say their evidence includes letters sent between Mebane and the inmate and a cell phone the prisoner had with Mebane's number. The Windsor Police Department's report adds that there are "...pictures said to have been mailed to an inmate of a black female with only underwear on in a bathroom and bedroom. The female appeared to be pregnant in the photo and about four months along." Sgt. Morris says, "No facial images were seen in the pictures, but there was some details of, of course, the body that did, we did feel that it was her." In acknowledging the relationship, Mebane says it lasted about two months. Despite allegations that she and the prisoner had sex throughout the prison, including in a break room and a closet, the former guard claims there may have been a single encounter. Asked who the father of her child is, Mebane answers with one word: "God."