A Rikers Island Captain Resigned After A Video Showed Her Kissing An Inmate In His Cell

A jail captain who worked at the infamous Rikers Island Correctional Facility resigned Monday after a contraband cell phone video showed her kissing an inmate.

The footage reveals Capt. Shantay Dash — a 10-year veteran with the New York City Department of Correction — walked up to the inmate's cell in an unidentified city jail, talked to him briefly, and then puckered up.

"What the hell?" Dash shouts after the kiss, then high-fives the inmate.

Dash, who made $80,000 a year, will have to relinquish the majority of her pension as a result of her resignation, according to the NY Daily News. 

The disgraced former captain did not wish to comment when reporters visited her at her apartment, but had this to say via email:

"I ask that you please respect my privacy at this time and do not come to my door, My family and friends should not have to suffer based on what is happening with me at this time. Please respect that. Thank you."

Several weeks ago, WPIX had been granted access to Rikers Island — the notoriously dangerous prison where Kalief Browder was held for three years — and discussed inmate-staff relationships with Commissioner Joseph Ponte.

"They develop relationships that are unhealthy," Ponte said at the time. "They get staff — again, in small numbers — to bring in phones and contraband."

Before she left her job, Dash was among those staff: Earlier this year, she had been charged with trying to help another inmate hide a tattoo in defiance of a judge's order.

In January, Dash was arrested for taking a tattoo gun into jail for her "female inmate lover" Robin Hamilton, reported the Daily News. Court documents showed that Hamilton wanted to change one her tattoos that linked her to several robberies.

After a judge ordered Hamilton's tattoo to be photographed and used as evidence in Dash's pending trial, a probe revealed that Dash bought the tattoo gun on Amazon.

Dash was placed on modified duty away from inmates after she was arrested in the tattoo gun incident, but she didn't lose her job.

The NY Department of Corrections declined to comment on the video of the kiss, but released the following statement: 

"The vast majority of Department of Correction staff perform their duties with the highest level of integrity and Commissioner Ponte has zero tolerance for those who don't."