TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

The letters detention deputy Margarita Young purportedly wrote to death row inmate Timothy Titus Rodriguez are a curious mix of sweet love, God references and porn.

They are among an inch-thick stack of investigative reports released Friday in the case of Young, 48, who faces a felony charge of unlawfully engaging in sexual contact with the 41-year-old Rodriguez during a few weeks in October and November.

Since mid-November she has been on administrative leave from her job for which she was paid $70,000 in 2008.

The letters were seized from the cell of Rodriguez -- some of them handwritten with an analysis by state experts indicating that Young wrote them -- before he was sentenced to death for the 2007 baseball bat bludgeoning death and robbery of a 90-year-old woman.

"You never cease to amaze me," said one love letter detailed in the court records.

Rodriguez said Young suggested she might even try to help him escape, the reports written by investigators and filed in Kern County Superior Court say. Rodriguez told investigators he rejected that idea because it would be "illegal" and he would always be a wanted man.

Young could not be reached for comment Friday. She previously has hung up on a reporter who was seeking comment.

But Rodriguez said her plans included giving him a detention officer uniform and makeup to cover his tattoos. Jail commanders have said Young couldn't get out of the building -- let alone the jail grounds -- without bypassing other guard stations. Young has not been charged with attempting to help an inmate escape.

The investigative reports include suspicions by other detention officers, details of how the alleged sexual acts occurred as Young was getting a divorce, Rodriguez's account of how the relationship began and a variety of emotions Young expressed in letters.

Something amiss

Other detention officers became concerned by what they saw between Young and Rodriguez, but none saw any sexual contact, the reports filed in court say.

But they did see Young and Rodriguez talking for up to an hour in her office, talking frequently at his cell door and Young allowing Rodriguez out of his cell to do work not allowed by his classification, the investigative reports say.

Rodriguez was classified as a security risk and a protective custody inmate. Only general population inmates can work around the jail, the reports say.

Young's partner in the E-pod section of the jail, Stacie Stearns, said she became alarmed at seeing Young walk in front of Rodriguez, exposing Young to an attack, according to her statements in court files.

Detention officer Alexandra Rossi said Young came in on Young's day off, wearing civilian clothes that exposed her cleavage, on Nov. 5 when Rodriguez was convicted of death penalty crimes. Rossi said she saw Young outside Rodriguez's cell talking to him, according to her statements filed in court.

Rossi was the first to write a memo about her suspicions on Nov. 9. Others soon followed. One deputy recognized Young's voice in a call Rodriguez made to her.

Rodriguez's story

By Nov. 16, Rodriguez was divulging details of the relationship to investigators, the reports say.

Rodriguez, who had been in jail more than 900 days since his arrest, was moved to the E-Pod where Young worked in July 2009.

He said Young first started talking to him in September when she pulled him out of his cell to discuss drug or other problems. She then talked to him about the problems she was having with her husband, Rodriguez told investigators.

Rodriguez said the first time they had sex was Oct. 17 in an attorney room used to visit inmate clients. Another time she set up a diversion with a cellmate of Rodriguez. The cellmate would report a headache that Stearns would have to check out, the reports say. Stearns documented that incident on Oct. 21.

Investigators said Rodriguez accurately described the control room and the control room bathroom -- places where he said she took him for sex even though inmates are not allowed in those rooms.

Troubled times for Young

During this time period, Young was filing to divorce her husband, Brian Steven Young. He was a detention officer himself before he committed a series of crimes, the first in November 2005, when there was a 12-hour standoff with the Bakersfield police SWAT team at the couple's home, police reported.

He fired a shotgun into the ground in that incident and was later convicted of felony resisting arrest. He was sentenced to nine months in jail. In October 2008, he was convicted of spousal battery in the same month Margarita Young first filed for a divorce from him.

Seven months later, the divorce was dropped, but six months after that her husband gained another conviction for drunken driving and criminal threats, court records say. She filed for divorce a second time Nov. 5, 2009, which was in the middle of her sexual relationship with Rodriguez, according to the investigative reports filed in court.

How he made her feel

"You never cease to amaze me," Young wrote to Rodriguez in one letter detailed in the court records. "Every time I read your letters it's as if you are here with me knowing my pain or knowing what I am going through emotionally. It's as if God sends you these messages for you to express them to me in writing."

The very next paragraph is sexually explicit. That letter concludes, "You are my sweet goof ball."

Another letter expresses worry, saying, "I know I asked you but I just have to make sure I'm not being played."

Evidence uncovered

Rodriguez gave investigators a piece of paper with her cell phone number on it, the reports say. He said she gave him a cell phone to call her, but he gave it back after a few days.

Investigators arranged for Rodriguez to call Young on Nov. 17. She told him in that call she was under investigation and could lose her job, the reports say.

Young said in the call that her phone was being monitored and she told him "just don't break," according to investigative reports. On Nov. 18, investigators showed up to her home with a search warrant. They asked her if she knew why they were there. "For the Timothy Rodriguez thing," she asked. They replied yes.

Young declined to speak to investigators. She's scheduled for an arraignment Jan. 25.