Patrick Morseman booking photo. Courtesy of CCCSheriff
By Scott Alonso, Public Information Officer, Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office
The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office announced today that Patrick Morseman of Vallejo was charged with four felonies for unlawful sex acts involving two inmates at the West County Detention Facility. Morseman was a Deputy with the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office and was assigned to the West County Detention Facility on the date the incidents occurred.
Morseman’s charges are specified penal code violations for sexual activity with a detainee in a jail. Morseman is charged with having unlawful oral copulation and sexual intercourse with the inmates in a jail cell during his shift on March 31.
Morseman was initially arrested by the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office on April 4 and released on $100,000 bail. The District Attorney’s Office requested that bail be set at $200,000.
Pursuant to state law, the identities of the victims will not be released as this is a sex crimes case. The victims in this case were offered victim assistance services by the District Attorney’s Office.
Morseman is facing a possible maximum sentence of five years in state prison. Arraignment is scheduled for a later date.
Case Information: People v. Morseman, Docket Number 02-327516-7
I am wondering why they had men supervising the women prisoners, it would make more sense to have women overseeing the women prisoners, I would think. Seems like in this day and age – it’s 2018 – half the deputies working at the CoCo jails should be women. I recall when current Contra Costa Sheriff David Livingston was Police Chief in Concord he ran a “bro culture” like PD – few women officers were recruited to work at the department. Additionally, the few women officers they had couldn’t get promoted, and they also complained of disparate treatment, which later led to law suits filed by the women officers. As I remember it multiple law suits filed by women officers were eventually settled by the City of Concord on David Livingston’s watch as Concord PD Chief.
More recently Livingston is leading the campaign to oust DA Diana Becton – CoCo County’s first women DA – the first women to hold the top DA’s job in 160 years! I got three daughters myself, I put them all through college working at my construction job – cost me a ton of money – but they all got better jobs than I ever had, they got high paying jobs where you don’t have to sweat all day in the hot sun, like I had to. And they are doing so great at these jobs! I don’t know about others but I think we need to get in the 21st century in law enforcement, no more old boys network, women should not be systematically kept out of law enforcement jobs at the Sheriff’s office or at the DA’s office either. The reason men in law enforcement do this, like CoCo County Sheriff David Livingston, is to preserve this patriarchal men-only “bro-culture” you’ve had in law enforcement over the years. If you keep women out the guys get to rule! That’s not fair, obviously, but also, these are public jobs, these jobs should reflect our counties diversity. The CoCo County Sheriff’s office not only should be ashamed of this sex scandal that happened that’s reported in this press release, they also should be ashamed they have so few women deputies they have got men supervising the women prisoners. The Sheriff’s office need to stop pretending they can’t find qualified women candidates, they need to get proactive in hiring and promoting women. While I think this needs to be done, we are probably going to have to wait until Livingston leaves, given his record.