A former West Virginia parole officer will spend the next 15 years in prison after being convicted for sexually assaulting a female parolee, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced April 20.

Anthony DeMetro, 44, was sentenced in federal court in the Southern District of West Virginia April 20, according to the news release. DeMetro, a former parole officer with the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, received 15 years of imprisonment, five years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender under the Federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, for violating the civil rights of a female parolee, the release reports.

“This office will continue to hold people accountable who use their position of power to sexually assault vulnerable victims,” U.S. Attorney Will Thompson for the Southern District of West Virginia said in the news release. “I want to thank the victim again for being brave enough to come forward, even though she was putting her personal safety and freedom at risk.”

Court documents show DeMetro admitted "he used physical force and his position, authority and status as a state parole officer to force a female parolee to perform oral sex on him against her will" on or about April 16, 2021. The documents also report that "DeMetro admitted that he knew that the parolee did not want to have sex with him but that he coerced and forced her into doing so anyway, for his own sexual gratification."

“Mr. DeMetro was in a position of power and authority,” Special Agent in Charge Mike Nordwall of the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office said in the release. “He used that authority to take advantage of and prey on a vulnerable woman. This behavior was in violation of the oath he took and cannot be tolerated.”

The case was investigated by the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office and prosecuted by Civil Right Division Criminal Section trial attorneys Kathryn Gilbert and Daniel Grunert and assistant U.S. Attorneys Monica Coleman and Nowles Heinrich.