Staff photo / Ed Runyan Kim Harbison is shown at the defense table in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court reading documents after her sentencing hearing Thursday.

YOUNGSTOWN — Former Northeast Ohio Correctional Center corrections officer Kim Harbison, 62, was sentenced to three years of probation Thursday for having sexual contact with an inmate.

The crime occurred while she was working at the prison and the inmate was confined there in June 2019.

She was terminated from her job at the prison.

She pleaded guilty earlier last month to gross sexual imposition before Judge John Durkin of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. She could have received up to 18 months in prison. NOCC is a private prison on Hubbard Road.

When Durkin asked her if she had anything to say, she replied, “I’m sorry.”

The judge approved the sentence recommended by prosecutors and her attorney, Christopher Maruca. She is ordered to have no contact with the victim.

If she violates the terms of her probation, she could get 18 months in prison.

Harbison, of Chidester Drive in Canfield, was indicted in November on sexual battery, but she accepted a plea agreement last month to the lesser offense.

The victim of the offense did not attend the hearing.