A female corrections officer fired for an alleged romantic relationship with an inmate has been awarded unemployment benefits.
State records indicate Azucena D. Valenzuela was employed as a corrections officer at the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility for three years before she was fired by the Iowa Department of Corrections in March 2025 for a having a relationship with an inmate.
According to the records, two of Valenzuela’s superiors approached her last October about a rumor that she was being enlisted to smuggle items into a correctional facility for a specific inmate. Valenzuela denied any knowledge of such activity, but her superiors allegedly told her that her interactions with the inmate in question were concerning.
On Dec. 22, 2024, the department placed Valenzuela on administrative leave while it investigated an alleged improper relationship between her and the inmate. The investigation looked into reports of Valenzuela talking with the inmate on the phone, talking with the inmate for extended periods during work hours, and what the department characterized as the two looking at each other in an “inappropriate” manner.
The department alleged that video footage showed Valenzuela talking with the inmate for extended periods on multiple occasions between Oct. 8, 2024. and Dec. 22, 2024, including six occasions in which they were captured on video while Valenzuela was working.
The department also claimed that during an encounter on Nov. 21, 2024, Valenzuela took the inmate’s iPad-style device and input the number of a “burner phone” she had purchased. However, at Valenzuela’s subsequent hearing on her application for unemployment benefits, the Department of Corrections provided “no evidence of any information put into the device at or around the time” Valenzuela handled it, Administrative Law Judge Blair Bennett observed.
The Department of Corrections also alleged the inmate had called Valenzuela’s phone on multiple occasions, expressing his affection for her and wanting to be with her. The person on the other end of the phone made similar comments. The department claimed multiple people said they believe it was Valenzuela on the receiving end of those calls, but it provided no such testimony from those individuals.
The department, Bennett later concluded, had conducted an extensive investigation and had determined that allegations of staff sexual misconduct were founded. Bennett noted that the corrections department had chosen not to offer any testimony from the witnesses it claimed to rely on in deciding to fire Valenzuela, nor did it provide her with any copies of phone recordings.
The department, Bennett found, “chose not to produce any witnesses to the alleged incidents, and did not produce anything that would credibly establish (Valenzuela) as being involved in phone calls with the inmate.” As such, she ruled, Valenzuela was qualified to receive unemployment benefits.
It’s not the first time the Department of Corrections has chosen to provide no direct evidence at hearings alleging workplace misconduct. In 2023, for example, the Fort Dodge facility fired corrections officer Robert W. Goodner for allegedly providing some unspecified form of “contraband” to inmates.
At Goodner’s hearing for unemployment benefits, none of the financial and phone records the department had subpoenaed — which would likely reveal the full scope of any alleged sales and the precise nature of any contraband — were offered into evidence. In addition, none of the DOC employees directly involved in the investigation testified at the hearing. As a result, Goodner was awarded unemployment benefits.
Asked then why the DOC didn’t present any records at Goodner’s hearing, Fort Dodge Correctional Facility Deputy Warden Don Harris said it was unclear what information the DOC should be sharing with others.
“I don’t know, since that’s part of an investigation for criminal prosecution, that the information should be put out there for anyone else,” Harris told the Iowa Capital Dispatch.
