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Convicted killer William Cordoba wins damages over claim he was prison worker's 'sex slave'

William Cordobo sued Silvia Pulido over alleged abuse at San Quentin State Prison in California

Peter Stubley
Saturday 10 February 2018 17:39 EST
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Convicted killer William Cordoba wins damages over claim he was prison worker's 'sex slave'

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A convicted murderer has won more than $65,000 (£47,000) in damages after claiming an instructor at a notorious US jail turned him into her "sex slave".

William Cordoba, 57, claimed Silvia Pulido started sexually abusing him after hiring him as a clerk in her office trailer at California's San Quentin State Prison.

He described in his legal action how Ms Pulido started flirting with him by saying "Get closer, I don't bite".

Cordoba said they first had sex in May 2010 after she put her hand over his on a computer mouse and said: "Here, let me help you do this faster."

Three days later Ms Pulido, a janitorial vocational instructor, changed the locks on her office so that nobody could walk in on them during sex, he said.

Cordoba was forced to be her "sex slave" after she promised to help pay for a lawyer to work on his case, according to his legal claim.

When he tried to back out of the abuse, Ms Pulido took revenge accusing him of harassment and he ended up spending nine months in solitary confinement, he said.

The prison worker's attorney argued Cordoba was delusional.

A jury awarded Cordoba $15,414 (£11.145) for harm and $50,000 (£36,153) in punitive damages following a six-day trial at the US District Court in Oakland, California..​

“All people have the right to be free from sexual abuse," Cordoba's lawyer Julia Allen told the New York Daily News.

"That doesn't change just because a person is incarcerated.”

Cordoba is serving a life sentence for a second-degree murder and robbery in San Francisco in 1981.

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