LOGAN COUNTY, Ill. (WAND) — Waiting has become a reluctant habit for Jacqueline Farris.

It's something she has done for close to five years. On December 28, 2015, while serving time for drug charges, Farris claims a correctional officer raped her in the prison laundry room.

"I don't think anyone is prepared for it until it happens; I was so stuck," she said. "I want to see someone held accountable for this."

Farris said she reported what happened that same day. Two days later, on Dec. 30, the guard in question, Erik Kohlrus, resigned from the Illinois Department of Corrections.

"Erik has maintained that she, Ms. Farris, manipulated him — cajoled him, if you will — into something he knew better than to do," said Kohlrus' attorney, William Vig.

In the days following the report, Farris claims prison staff pressured her into saying the encounter was consensual.

"I was nervous because I did brush my teeth," Farris said. "He didn't ejaculate inside of me, so I thought: 'What if they find nothing?' The investigator has the box that contains my underwear, the rape kit and everything they've done. He was like: 'If this box does not say he raped you, you're going to get more time.'"

At the time, Farris was only at Logan Correctional to wait for an opening in a boot camp program for first-time offenders. If she completed it, her sentence would only have lasted four months. Instead, she said the anti-anxiety medications she took following the alleged assault disqualified her from the program and turned those four months into three years behind bars.

"That was one of the things [Kohlrus] told me: 'If I tell, I won't go to boot camp,'" Farris said. "He was right about that."

WAND News showed that exact clip from our interview with Jacqueline Farris to Vig to get a response on behalf of his client.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Vig replied. "Think about it for a moment: It's not exactly news to anyone that it's illegal for a guard and an inmate to have sex. The idea that someone who is going to lose their job for doing that is then going to prevent the person from going to boot camp is ludicrous."

Investigators eventually arrested Kohlrus more than two years after the alleged rape. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of custodial sexual misconduct, admitting to a consensual sexual encounter between an IDOC employee and an inmate. That charge, a felony, carries the need to register as a sex offender. But instead of prison time, Kohlrus was sentenced to veterans treatment court — a program that will wipe the charges and the sex offender registry off his record upon completion.

"This is much different that forcible rape cases," Vig said. "This is much different than child molesters. This has nothing to do with those things where there is a public safety concern for people on the outside ... there's nothing about the crime of custodial sexual misconduct that has any linkage to some tendency to offend on the outside."

During Kohlrus' sentencing hearing in 2019, Farris saw him for the first time since that fateful December morning close to four years earlier. She read her victim impact statement for the judge and Kohlrus.

"The hardest part was that he was in the room and he was feet from me," Farris said. "I just remember him crying and his face was red. I felt almost bad. I still felt like I was wanting to protect my perpetrator a little bit."

Veterans treatment courts formed in Illinois as a way to help veterans struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues after serving their country. Judge Charles Feeney from the 11th Judicial Circuit helped found the program in his circuit, covering Logan, Ford, McLean, Woodford and Livingston counties.

He's also a former Marine and understands many of the program's participants on a level few can. 

"These are veterans that served that country, that freely gave of their time out of their life to go serve and stand in harm's way for us," Feeney said. "That impact manifests itself in different ways."

In order to qualify, veterans need to have a mental health or substance abuse issue and the offense needs to be eligible for probation. Vig wouldn't get into specifics, but said Kohlrus' service in the Air Force gave him some condition that checked the first box. The charge of custodial sexual misconduct checked the second.

"[Veterans treatment court] is typically not used in a situation like this where somebody is abusing their power — especially in a situation where you have essentially a rape," said Farris' attorney, Stephen Weil.

Neither Farris nor Weil have any ill will toward the program; they just object to how it was applied in this case. If Kohlrus had been charged and convicted on sexual assault or rape charges, he would've never been eligible for the program.

"I wish we could change the law," Farris said. "This is going to keep happening. The way that they're handling it and no one is being held accountable, it's going to keep happening."

The legal battles aren't over for Kohlrus. Farris is suing him and others from IDOC for damages stemming from her alleged rape. Now out of prison, she wants her story to inspire others to report sexual misconduct behind bars.

"I want my voice to let others inmates know, other female inmates, that you have rights," she said. "You're still a person."