Ethics Hearing Exposes X-Rated Emails Between Gold Coast Prison Psychologist Sarah-Jane Lodington and Inmates

October 10, 2022

A series of explicit messages has allegedly exposed the sordid trysts between a disgraced jailhouse psychologist and two inmates she was treating, as she fights to save her career.

Hundreds of text messages and emails allegedly sent and received by Sarah-Jane Lodington detail her Xrated encounters at a Queensland low security jail and the demise of her relationship with drug trafficker Allen Marcel Milos, who she thought loved her but his “lack of effort” and refusal to commit made her feel “used” and not “special.”

Lodington, also known as Sarah-Jane Florentin, assured Milos she was “not some psycho b*tch” when telling him she loved him, but also told the drug peddler he needed “proper psych sessions” to work on his core beliefs “like you’re just a client.”

“I can separate the two,’’ she wrote.

The prison shrink described her other prison beau David Gardiner as an “amazing lover” and says she has “never had more pleasure in” her life when reliving one of their late night secret romps.

The 41-year-old writes about “craving” Milos and their “mind numbing” sex, sympathizes with Gardiner for having to sleep on an uncomfortable prison mattress and makes plans for them to have a baby and live together outside prison walls.

The messages reveal she helped him craft a favorable parole application, while her inmate lover requested she see a prison doctor on his behalf in the hope a “no red meat” diet would be approved.

The messages have been filed in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which is due to hold a disciplinary hearing into Lodington’s alleged breaches of ethics for her profession.

The mother-of-four, who has been suspended from the profession since 2019, is accused of sending the messages to the two inmates she was counselling at low security prison Palen Creek, near Beaudesert, including Milos in 2018 and Gardiner in 2019.

She also allegedly sent Gardiner selfies taken inside her office and photos of her modelling new frocks for him, and talks about passing on messages from Allen Milos to his brother Daniel Milos, who is also a convicted drug trafficker.

She is also accused of buying the mobile phone that Gardiner used to secretly text her from his prison cell, using identification belonging to another prisoner without their knowledge.

Mobile phones are banned in prisons and it is a criminal offence to have them.

Lodington pleaded guilty to taking a “prohibited thing” – the phone – inside a prison.

According to documents filed in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, she swiftly sparked up relationships with prisoners, firstly Milos then Gardiner – after just meeting a handful of times during psychological therapy sessions.

She is accused of having sex with “f*ck buddy” Allen Milos in the women’s staff quarters on a chilly winter’s night in June 2018 – a claim she denies.

She also denies having sex with Gardiner while he was in prison, but admits they consummated their relationship after his release in December 2019.

But in her messages she describes sexual encounters with both men in explicit detail.

When she was prosecuted in 2020, the Southport Magistrates Court was told Allen Milos alleged they were in a relationship “for months” in 2018.

The tribunal documents state they had originally arranged to meet in a paddock at Palen Creek prison, but it was so cold they decided to go to the staff quarters instead.

While she was describing great sex with Gardiner she was coaching him to get parole and he was participating in “group resilience program sessions” from September 2018 until the end of February 2019.

They exchanged hundreds of text messages from February 9, 2019 onward, sometimes sending a dozen a day.

Gardiner was allegedly saved as a contact in Ms. Lodington’s phone as “My Love.”

She worked as a psychologist at Palen Creek between December 18, 2017 and February 28, 2019, when she was suspended from her job, then resigned three weeks later.

Ms. Lodington is accused of giving Milos sexual favors in her office as well as having sex with him in the male prison’s women’s staff quarters.

There were no cameras in her prison office, and it was not monitored by prison staff, QCAT documents state.

Ms. Lodington has also denied that she gave a photograph of herself to Allen Milos, and that she gave Allen about 30 letters, which have since allegedly been destroyed.

She allegedly received a photograph of a male torso on her phone, and allegedly sent photos of herself in her office, wearing her prison uniform, and of her office, to Gardiner in February 2019.

She sent them at 1am in the morning.

The Office of the Health Ombudsman has brought the case in the QCAT in a bid to prove that Ms. Lodington is guilty of professional misconduct.

The messages filed in QCAT were downloaded from her mobile phone which was seized by Corrective Services Investigations Unit officers, who searched her office at Palen Creek prison the day before she was suspended from her job.

They found her mobile “hidden under documents in her desk drawer.”

She claimed she took her phone into Palen Creek prison “due to a power outage” and she needed to contact her husband about one of their children.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of abuse of office, one count of disclosing confidential information and the one count of taking a “prohibited thing” inside a prison.

They related to her taking part in a conference phone call with Allen and Daniel Milos on January 8, 2019.

She was sentenced to two years’ probation in Southport Magistrates Court on May 20, 2020.

She previously spent a decade working in NSW prison Long Bay jail and Parklea in Sydney’s west, and as a case manager in probation and parole in NSW, QCAT documents state.

She is currently working as a self-employed disability support worker, the tribunal documents state.

When approached by The Sunday Mail for comment about the case at her Mudgeeraba home on the Gold Coast Ms. Lodington said she had the mobile phone in her prison office so she could keep in touch with her disabled son.

Ms. Lodington’s lawyer Ritvik Ravi told The Sunday Mail that she did not wish to comment or respond to the messages found on the phone.

At a directions hearing held last month, QCAT deputy president Geraldine Dann ordered Ms. Lodington to file her sworn evidence by November 4 and set the case down for a directions hearing on December 2.

NOTES ON SARAH LODINGTON'S PHONE AT TIME OF ALLEGED INMATE RELATIONSHIP

Below are notes on Sarah-Jane Lodington's phone - found in February 2019 - two months after she was alleged to be having an 'intimate personal and/or sexual relationship' with Allen Milos

OCTOBER 25, 2018

13.53pm

Florentin

Cellebrite (notes)

“Hey baby, gosh I don’t even know where to start. I wish we could rewind these last few weeks and never go through all the crap we’ve been through. I feel like I haven’t spoken to you properly in ages, all our time has been consumed by the crap with smokes and then well with you thinking a) I’m a manipulative crazy woman that stalks your brother and nominees both him and (REDACTED) with messages!! :p; of yuh think about it from my view, you’ll see, I didn’t message (REDACTED) or (REDACTED) any more than required, with Dan I think it was me also maybe missing you and feeling a sense of connection to you via your family. I would love nothing more then to be able to communicate wit Wendy.

“On Tuesday night when I saw you run across I was so happy! (REDACTED) had told me you would only come to the dence, his words were “he’s assuming he’ll just come to the fence,” I asked him how did he know you were assuming and that dnd he said cause that’s what he (as in you) said. The way you were (TOO EXPLICIT) I could honestly do it all night. I love it, love love love it. My favourite is of course feeling you (TOO EXPLICIT), it’s the most mind numbing, best feeling.

“I’m craving you right now, I’m at the house.

“So it’s 6.29 am and I’m still in bed. I’m so horny. I have been thinking about (TOO EXPLICIT) I get turned on with that one heaps. I’m also still so keen to experience (TOO EXPLICIT) with you, although I’m scared too. I mean, I’m not kidding when I say that (TOO EXPLICIT) These last few times more so than ever, but I think it’s cause the car one I wasn’t fully relaxed (TOO EXPLICIT) behind the drivers seat and (TOO EXPLICIT) god it felt out of this world in the moment but (TOO EXPLICIT)!

“It does suck for me a bit when I tell you I’m so in love with you after (TOO EXPLICIT) and my hormones are surging and my heart is pounding and I feel full of love for you and I say those words and you say nothing back, it doesn’t bother me in that I think oh he doesn’t love me, for some strange reason I actually know that you love me……

“I will even be so “brazen” to say that I am quite certain you’re in love with me, so I don’t get insecure. It just makes me feel sucky cause I don’t get why you don’t want to say it. You are fighting it, you’re still scared, you think it’s crazy, “it’s madness” that I’d wait for you! Why don’t you see your worth? If waiting until 21 jan 21 (I can’t remember if it’s 20 or 20st) anyway, if waiting until 2021 means that I get to have a man like you to love, protect, care, provide and f*ck me, I’d wait a lot longer than 2.5 years Allen. Everything that’s good in life is worth fighting and waiting for in my opinion@ I’ve never chased instant gratification. I’ve always been patient and worked/chipped away at what I want to get the reward at the end!

“I’m not some psycho b*itch! I haven’t got a malicious bone in my body! 

“I guess my point is you make me feel very special when you make love to me, it’s the way you kiss me I think? You’re not forceful but yet I can feel your hunger for me, I like that you don’t assume you can f*ck me I think, I like that you asked me that night when I was broken and crying. I just get this aching feeling in my heart and my head goed “I can see that he loves me but why is he so hung up on not saying it in those moments?” Why can’t he tell me what he thinks about me or just say yes I missed you? Why would he rather leave me hanging? That’s what makes me start questioning if you’re just playing games etc. Anyway I better get up, I think I over share but hey that’s me! Just call me intense and crazy and be done with it! The only difference with the Sarah I am today is that I can honestly say that no matter how much I love you, I will not stay with you if you treat me like sh*t or if you can’t start sharing your feelings and opening up or if you keep pushing me away. I’ll always be your friend, but you will not have me as your one person in love because I know how f*cking amazing I am, and I’m not letting another man ever make me feel like shit again if I’m not going to be treated like the queens of his life and cherished then f*ck that. 

“I do want you to be my man you’ve put me down a few times you’ve looked at me like you’re questioning my integrity and that turns me off. You not saying that you don’t want want me with any f*cking other man sh*tted me, I can’t take the thought of you f*cking another woman, gosh I feel sick just thinking of it, kissing another woman,(TOO EXPLICIT), nope no ducking way can I deal with that. I will be your friend but I’ll cut you off and have no contact with you if that’s what you decide you need to do. But you on other hand you couldn’t say to me the other night that no ducking way are you ok with another man being with me, sharing moments with me????? Seriously? I know you f*cking love me! I know you’re in love with me, your eyes tell me, your actions show me and yet you cat just grab me and hold me tight and say no way, I cannot stand the thought of another man f*cking you Sarah, you’re mine! I mean I’d (TOO EXPLICIT) if you did that. Instead you leave me with it. You risk us maybe not seeing eachother again and leaving me with nothing? That turns me off cause life can snatch us away at anytime, here one day, gone the next etc. don’t leave things unsaid , that’s how I am anyway. OK, I gotta go! I’m in Brisbane next weekend. If you want a letter delivered I’ll take it seal it up and tell him anything you haven’t been able to, otherwise I’m not going anywhere near him or that restaurant. Ps I want to have some proper psych sessions with you, if you can let me have sessions with you like you’re just a client I can separate the two I do it all the time. I want do core beliefs work. I’m sorry I couldn’t find those pacers you were after dang I haven’t been able to get to a newsagent, did you end up getting them? OK f*ck you later Allen!

“I’m not chasing you, you’ve got some damage control that you need to do to fix a few things I’ve mentioned above. I’m either you’re girl or I’m not and if I’m not then you’re not f*cking touching me ever again. I’m so much more than any other woman and I know it so either work for me or give me up cause I’m not going to allow myself to love a man that doesn’t want me all to himself. Bye Allen. Xxx” 

AUGUST 31, 2018

6.01am

Florentin

QCS email

“You know I told you things hit me after, well here I am it’s 12.46 and I’ve clearly slept away my exhaustion and now the tears are just pouring out of me. You have ruined us. The amount of times I’ve felt like sh*t after seeing you in private have now well and truly overtaken the occasions that you have left and I felt happy and secure. “If you’re not going to c*m then there’s no point to me being here”

“Really????

“Ok thanks for that. (TOO EXPLICIT) out there……. And I mean what I said (TOO EXPLICIT) (read between the lines on that one). I told you from the start so much of it depends on my head and that emotional connection, that’s my key remember. I don’t feel emotionally connected to you anymore. I feel used, cheap and f*cken stupid for being so easy for you. I keep making allowances because you’re in gaol and because you’re paranoid, because you don’t understand the loyalty that embodies my every part of my being. I keep telling myself that I’ll prove myself to you and then you’ll drop that guard because maybe you’re scared. But you know what, even if that’s true your actions lately and lack of effort say much more to me. It’s a turn off. I;m actively making it sink in my head now that you don’t love me, that you are not in love with me, that you don’t give a fuck about losing me and that I’m nothing to you but an easy f*ck. I will now continue to flick that switch in my brain and soon enough my feelings for you, my yearning for you, the nostalgia that I have will disappear. Already I can say that the feeling I used to get thinking of you has gone from my stomach, and I don’t respect you as much anymore. I’m telling myself that I got it wrong. I’m in love with the man in my head that I saw snippets of but he been gone for weeks now, he’s taken a back seat to this man that hasn’t got the decency to write to me, to make me feel special or loved, he’s been overthrown by this man that hasn’t the faintest idea how wrong he is about me and clearly has no respect for me or my worth. So to that Allen I say f*ck you, I don’t like you. You will not touch me again.  

“I rescind my invitation to you into the house. I can get(TOO EXPLICIT). I’ve always known that and never cared for it. I save myself for that one person but that no longer you. If you think I sound angry you are correct, but anger is a secondary emotion its the tip of the iceberg but what’s going on underneath that anger for me are feelings of hurt, embarrassment, humiliation, disappointment, sense of being used, disrespect, unloved, unwanted, saf, etc. I’m angry because I have myself to you in every possible way, even now as you read this I’ve given you more of my vulnerabilities, but I’m prepared this time for the lack of reciprocity, I expect nothing from you now. I want nothing from you. I’ll have your back 110%, I’ll always help you professionally, but honestly we’re not best friends, we’re not even friends. You’ve disconnected from mne and I’m tired of carrying this relationship, my optimism is gone, there is no Eclipsing or Tarzan going on here. You don’t make me feel protected anymore, you don’t give a f*ck. I finally see it now, I have to assert new boundaries for my own sanity. You f*cked this. You said I was your girl, you told me you loved me, wowo, I would have cherished you and loved you unconditionally. I don’t think that part of me will change. I’ll do anything to help you if you ask. But I don’t think you get what have been thrown away and you won’t know, you don’t know until you get out and see the trash that’s out there. Good luck with that, but maybe that’s what you want in order to feel like you have a life….. You need to be out there before any woman can see your worth….. I mean only a crazy person could love you while you’re in gaol right? You’re so foolish, but I won’t be around when you wake up to yourself.  

“You can’t give me what I want, after everything we’ve shared and the love I’ve shown you, you can’t even make me feel special. God I’m so f*cken stupid. You’re manipulative and controlling. I’ve put myself out there to give you reassurance and help you see I’m loyal and trustworthy and you just can’t see it cause you’re so caught up in the poor my thoughts that you have. Anyway, my tears have dried now, it’s only a matter of time before I’m healed. I’m going now. This is my closure. Ps you spoke about fun and sh*t last night when you basically told me I’m just a f*ck buddy telling me different people different fun and bullsh*it, so thanks for that, seeing as you’re all into fun and being stress free and don’t want to keep me for yourself, you can’t just f*cken grab me and tell me you want me all for you and therefore I’m you’re girl, I’ll take a page out of your book and go have some fun. Maybe if I f*ck around a bit I won’t be so hung up on the other stuff and maybe I’ll relax and be the sl*t you think I am, maybe who knows?

“Oh wait….. Go f*ck yourself Allen. I’m not a sl*t but you’re not my man = done.” 

Source: Vanda Carson, “Jailhouse shrink’s alleged X-rated trysts with inmates,” The Courier Mail, Oct. 9, 2022.