A CO gets an inmate pregnant — AND falls in love with her
Meanwhile, while Piper and Alex are settling into prison culture, we’ve got another star-crossed and forbidden romance brewing on the other side of Litchfield. Correctional Officer (CO for short) John Bennett (Matt McGorry) and inmate Dayanara “Daya” Diaz (Dascha Polanco) started a pretty aggressive flirtation from the moment she was incarcerated. From the outset, it seems that CO Bennett has a heart of gold, and even though he’s still a correctional officer, he has empathy for the inmates, which is lacking in most of his colleagues (especially “Pornstache”… we’ll get to that crazy shortly).
Daya is new to Litchfield at the outset of the show. She seems hard and unapproachable, but Bennett allows her to let her guard down. They begin to flirt and eventually start stealing away to the broom closet for… meetings. Of course, condoms aren’t readily available in an all-women’s prison, so one thing led to another and Daya eventually got pregnant.
As if the union of CO and inmate weren’t explosive enough, the lengths to which Daya, her mother Aleida and her prison family go to cover up the pregnancy are pretty insane. After it becomes clear that CO Mendez takes a liking to Daya, Aleida encourages her to frame him for the pregnancy.