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News in Brief
California: On June 24, 2002, San Francisco prosecutor Floyd Andrews pleaded not guilty to felony assault charges stemming from his stabbing of Martin Stanley when he caught Stanley urinating on a fence in front of his home. Andrews stabbed Stanley seriously enough to expose his intestines and sever part of his liver. Andrews also faces misdemeanor charges of misrepresenting himself as a peace officer and making criminal threats against another man who slept in a truck near Andrews' home. Andrews is also charged with battery and corporal injury on a child for hitting his daughter.
California: On May 13, 2002 HIV+ prisoners at the Chronic Infectious Disease Unit at the state prison in Corcoran staged a one day medication strike to protest inadequate medical care and harsh unit conditions. A new prison doctor, with no experience in HIV/AIDS treatment, had taken all HIV+ prisoners off all pain medications despite the fact that many suffer from painful conditions. The prison lacks any HIV specialists on its staff.
California: On November 13, 2001, Robert Bowman, 66, a former doctor at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla was acquitted by a Madera county jury of felony charges that he sexually assaulted two female prisoners during medical exams. The jury deliberated less than an hour before acquitting Bowman, who still faces civil litigation over the alleged assaults.
Canada: On May 16, 2002, police found Raymond Tudor, 48, hiding inside a ventilation duct at the Drumheller Institution in Alberta. Tudor disappeared on March 26 and was believed to have escaped, prompting a nationwide manhunt. Tudor, serving a life sentence for murder, was found by a tracking dog after a guard thought he saw Tudor. It is believed that other prisoners fed Tudor while he hid.
Illinois: In May, 2002, Leann Serrano, 36, appeared in federal court in Peoria after being indicted for attempting to smuggle two ounces of cocaine to prisoners at the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin where she worked as a nurse. The drugs were supplied by undercover police. Bank records showed Serrano had received money orders from prisoners' relatives.
Iowa: In June, 2001, Danielle Carpenter, 29, a guard at the Boone county Juvenile Detention Facility in Woodward was charged with having sex with a 16 year old male prisoner at the facility. The boot camp prison is operated by Sequel Youth Service, a private, for profit company based in Pennsylvania. In 2000, another Woodward Academy guard, Carol Sue Chantrill, 43, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14 year old prisoner at the facility.
Lithuania: In June, 2002, the nation's top prison officials were fired after a massive outbreak of HIV was discovered among the nation's prison population. Before May, 2002, 361 people in the entire country of 3.5 million had been identified as having HIV. A study released in June showed that 207 of the 1,727 prisoners at the Alytus Penitentiary alone tested positive for HIV, raising the specter of the disease being spread upon the prisoners' release from prison. Intravenous drug use is the main cause of the disease's spread in Lithuania.
Maryland: On April 25, 2002, Charles Elliot, 46, a state parole officer, was indicted by a state grand jury on charges that he solicited a $1,000 bribe from a prisoner on parole in exchange for not reporting a parole violation.
Maryland: On April 30, 2002, George Green, 44, a prisoner at the Anne Arundel county jail in Annapolis, was sentenced to eight years in prison for throwing a bloody gauze at jail guard Cheryl McKeldin-Brady on April 23, 2001. Jail guards beat Green and cut his face. He was given ice and gauze to stop the bleeding and later threw the bloody gauze at McKeldin-Brady, hitting her on the face. News reports said that Green was tested for AIDS but the results were not disclosed. The Baltimore Sun then reported that as a result of Green's test, McKeldin-Brady underwent a month-long treatment of anti AIDS drugs and has not tested positive for the disease. Green had been convicted previously of assaulting McKeldin-Brady on another occasion at the jail in 1998.
Michigan: In February, 2002, former Standish Correctional Facility guard Lonny D. Bailey, 35, was found fit to stand trial on charges that he shot and killed Lonni Berryhill in the back with a shotgun. Bailey told police he was distraught at having been suspended from his job as a prison guard. Bailey had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility in 2000 but was released after medication controlled his paranoia and schizophrenia.
New York: In April, 2002, John Amitrano, 42, the head cook at the Nassau county jail was indicted in federal court in Brooklyn on fraud charges that he split $42,000 in bogus food invoices with the Penachio Company in the Bronx that was paid for food never delivered to the jail in 1998. The indictment was part of a bid rigging investigation into companies that supply food to public schools in New York. As reported in past issues of PLN , the Nassau county jail is a cesspool of brutality, corruption, mismanagement and civil rights abuses even by jail standards.
New York: In March, 2002, the state Department of Correctional Services announced it would discontinue its 35 year old annual prisoner art show, known as the Corrections on Canvas show. Since its inception the art show had been held in the legislative office building in Albany. Corrections commissioner Glenn Goord also announced that effective March 29, 2002, New York prisoners could produce arts and handicrafts but could not profit from them. The art show cancellation and the ban on art sales began after it became public knowledge that serial killer Arthur Shawcross was selling his prison made paintings.
Ohio: In April, 2002, a federal grand jury indicted Lebanon Correctional Institution prisoners Warren Cromety, 27, and Frankie Porter, 29, with conspiracy to rob banks. Prosecutors claim the duo recruited Cromety's half brother and their girlfriends to rob two Akron banks. The prisoners were recorded using prison phones to plot the robberies. The proceeds of the robbery were supposed to finance a lawyer to challenge Cromety's initial conviction.
Ohio: In June, 2002, Ohio Penal Industries, which manufactures office furniture and provides services to government agencies using prison slave labor, announced it was laying off 35 non prisoner employees.
Ohio: On April 18, 2002, Toledo Correctional Institution guards Darren Beining, Aaron Griswold, Lynn McCoy and Cole Tipton were fired for encouraging two prisoners to fight in a recreation cell on February 22, 2002. Guard Wesley Mong was suspended for five days for his involvement in the incident.
Ohio: On May 15, 2002, former Lucas County Correctional Treatment Facility guard S.T. Johnson, 30, was charged with three counts of sexual battery for having sex with a female prisoner. Two other employees accused of having sex with prisoners were also charged.
Rhode Island: On April 11, 2002, prison guard William Roche, 43, was arrested for allegedly allowing a state prisoner on a work detail to pick up a prostitute and have sex with her in a prison owned van. Roche drove the couple to a secluded location and exited the vehicle before the (unspecified in media reports) sex act took place.
Tennessee: On May 16, 2002, David Ivy, 30, a prisoner at the Shelby County jail in Memphis, escaped by crawling through a hole in a fence around the jail's rooftop recreation area and climbing down a drainpipe. Ivy was awaiting trial on murder charges. In 1991 Ivy had escaped from the same jail, through the same hole in the same fence. Jailers were at a loss to explain why the hole had not been repaired in the intervening 11 years.
Tennessee: On May 27, 2002, one hundred Tennessee state prisoners at the Corrections Corporation of America run South Central Correctional Facility in Clinton staged a four hour sit down strike. Media reports did not disclose the prisoners' grievances. CCA spokesman Greg Abrams aid: "They probably have some issues, but they haven't gotten organized enough to have anybody speak for them." The prison was locked down as a result of the strike. The prisoners ended their strike after speaking to the prison warden.
Texas: On December 31, 2001, William Steed Kelley, 33, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for assaulting a guard on December 20, 1999, at the McConnell Unit in Beeville. After the assault, Kelley seized control of the ad seg unit in the prison and released 80 prisoners from their cells who then demolished the unit causing $34,000 in damages. [See PLN , , 2000, for details.] Kelley was convicted of assaulting the guard and faced a potential life sentence. In imposing the 8 year sentence, the jury found that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had been negligent in allowing Kelley to escape from his control unit cell in the first place. Kelley represented himself pro se at the trial.
Virginia: On July 1, 2002, the body of Suffolk I State Prison guard Rebekah Ida Brown, 42, was found in the trunk of a car in Prince George county. Brown's body was dressed in her guard uniform.
Washington: On April 21, 2002, Scott Brimble, 30, a prisoner at the Okanogan county jail escaped from a jail recreation area using dental floss and toothpaste to cut through a wire mesh grill and pry it apart to escape. Brimble had been sentenced to 64 days in the jail in February, 2002, for failing to register as a sex offender. He faced additional time for probation violations.
Washington: On May 12, 2002, Raymond Green, 42, a prisoner at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe was stabbed in the neck while in the prison yard. Prisoners Scott Smith and Gus Turner were investigated by prison officials as the alleged assailants. No motive was given for the attack. The prison was locked down for a week and searched after the attack.
Washington: On May 30, 2002, Snohomish county jail nurse Paul Wentland, 56, was charged with custodial sexual assault for giving a 29 year old female prisoner unspecified pills in exchange for sex on six occasions. Apparently the prisoner became upset that Wentland did not provide her with pills after each encounter and she sent a friend a plastic bag with Wentland's semen in it and asked her to freeze it, saying she had been sexually assaulted. The semen was returned to the jail for insufficient postage and was duly investigated by Everett police. A DNA test matched the semen to Wentland.
California: On May 13, 2002 HIV+ prisoners at the Chronic Infectious Disease Unit at the state prison in Corcoran staged a one day medication strike to protest inadequate medical care and harsh unit conditions. A new prison doctor, with no experience in HIV/AIDS treatment, had taken all HIV+ prisoners off all pain medications despite the fact that many suffer from painful conditions. The prison lacks any HIV specialists on its staff.
California: On November 13, 2001, Robert Bowman, 66, a former doctor at the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla was acquitted by a Madera county jury of felony charges that he sexually assaulted two female prisoners during medical exams. The jury deliberated less than an hour before acquitting Bowman, who still faces civil litigation over the alleged assaults.
Canada: On May 16, 2002, police found Raymond Tudor, 48, hiding inside a ventilation duct at the Drumheller Institution in Alberta. Tudor disappeared on March 26 and was believed to have escaped, prompting a nationwide manhunt. Tudor, serving a life sentence for murder, was found by a tracking dog after a guard thought he saw Tudor. It is believed that other prisoners fed Tudor while he hid.
Illinois: In May, 2002, Leann Serrano, 36, appeared in federal court in Peoria after being indicted for attempting to smuggle two ounces of cocaine to prisoners at the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin where she worked as a nurse. The drugs were supplied by undercover police. Bank records showed Serrano had received money orders from prisoners' relatives.
Iowa: In June, 2001, Danielle Carpenter, 29, a guard at the Boone county Juvenile Detention Facility in Woodward was charged with having sex with a 16 year old male prisoner at the facility. The boot camp prison is operated by Sequel Youth Service, a private, for profit company based in Pennsylvania. In 2000, another Woodward Academy guard, Carol Sue Chantrill, 43, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14 year old prisoner at the facility.
Lithuania: In June, 2002, the nation's top prison officials were fired after a massive outbreak of HIV was discovered among the nation's prison population. Before May, 2002, 361 people in the entire country of 3.5 million had been identified as having HIV. A study released in June showed that 207 of the 1,727 prisoners at the Alytus Penitentiary alone tested positive for HIV, raising the specter of the disease being spread upon the prisoners' release from prison. Intravenous drug use is the main cause of the disease's spread in Lithuania.
Maryland: On April 25, 2002, Charles Elliot, 46, a state parole officer, was indicted by a state grand jury on charges that he solicited a $1,000 bribe from a prisoner on parole in exchange for not reporting a parole violation.
Maryland: On April 30, 2002, George Green, 44, a prisoner at the Anne Arundel county jail in Annapolis, was sentenced to eight years in prison for throwing a bloody gauze at jail guard Cheryl McKeldin-Brady on April 23, 2001. Jail guards beat Green and cut his face. He was given ice and gauze to stop the bleeding and later threw the bloody gauze at McKeldin-Brady, hitting her on the face. News reports said that Green was tested for AIDS but the results were not disclosed. The Baltimore Sun then reported that as a result of Green's test, McKeldin-Brady underwent a month-long treatment of anti AIDS drugs and has not tested positive for the disease. Green had been convicted previously of assaulting McKeldin-Brady on another occasion at the jail in 1998.
Michigan: In February, 2002, former Standish Correctional Facility guard Lonny D. Bailey, 35, was found fit to stand trial on charges that he shot and killed Lonni Berryhill in the back with a shotgun. Bailey told police he was distraught at having been suspended from his job as a prison guard. Bailey had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility in 2000 but was released after medication controlled his paranoia and schizophrenia.
New York: In April, 2002, John Amitrano, 42, the head cook at the Nassau county jail was indicted in federal court in Brooklyn on fraud charges that he split $42,000 in bogus food invoices with the Penachio Company in the Bronx that was paid for food never delivered to the jail in 1998. The indictment was part of a bid rigging investigation into companies that supply food to public schools in New York. As reported in past issues of PLN , the Nassau county jail is a cesspool of brutality, corruption, mismanagement and civil rights abuses even by jail standards.
New York: In March, 2002, the state Department of Correctional Services announced it would discontinue its 35 year old annual prisoner art show, known as the Corrections on Canvas show. Since its inception the art show had been held in the legislative office building in Albany. Corrections commissioner Glenn Goord also announced that effective March 29, 2002, New York prisoners could produce arts and handicrafts but could not profit from them. The art show cancellation and the ban on art sales began after it became public knowledge that serial killer Arthur Shawcross was selling his prison made paintings.
Ohio: In April, 2002, a federal grand jury indicted Lebanon Correctional Institution prisoners Warren Cromety, 27, and Frankie Porter, 29, with conspiracy to rob banks. Prosecutors claim the duo recruited Cromety's half brother and their girlfriends to rob two Akron banks. The prisoners were recorded using prison phones to plot the robberies. The proceeds of the robbery were supposed to finance a lawyer to challenge Cromety's initial conviction.
Ohio: In June, 2002, Ohio Penal Industries, which manufactures office furniture and provides services to government agencies using prison slave labor, announced it was laying off 35 non prisoner employees.
Ohio: On April 18, 2002, Toledo Correctional Institution guards Darren Beining, Aaron Griswold, Lynn McCoy and Cole Tipton were fired for encouraging two prisoners to fight in a recreation cell on February 22, 2002. Guard Wesley Mong was suspended for five days for his involvement in the incident.
Ohio: On May 15, 2002, former Lucas County Correctional Treatment Facility guard S.T. Johnson, 30, was charged with three counts of sexual battery for having sex with a female prisoner. Two other employees accused of having sex with prisoners were also charged.
Rhode Island: On April 11, 2002, prison guard William Roche, 43, was arrested for allegedly allowing a state prisoner on a work detail to pick up a prostitute and have sex with her in a prison owned van. Roche drove the couple to a secluded location and exited the vehicle before the (unspecified in media reports) sex act took place.
Tennessee: On May 16, 2002, David Ivy, 30, a prisoner at the Shelby County jail in Memphis, escaped by crawling through a hole in a fence around the jail's rooftop recreation area and climbing down a drainpipe. Ivy was awaiting trial on murder charges. In 1991 Ivy had escaped from the same jail, through the same hole in the same fence. Jailers were at a loss to explain why the hole had not been repaired in the intervening 11 years.
Tennessee: On May 27, 2002, one hundred Tennessee state prisoners at the Corrections Corporation of America run South Central Correctional Facility in Clinton staged a four hour sit down strike. Media reports did not disclose the prisoners' grievances. CCA spokesman Greg Abrams aid: "They probably have some issues, but they haven't gotten organized enough to have anybody speak for them." The prison was locked down as a result of the strike. The prisoners ended their strike after speaking to the prison warden.
Texas: On December 31, 2001, William Steed Kelley, 33, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for assaulting a guard on December 20, 1999, at the McConnell Unit in Beeville. After the assault, Kelley seized control of the ad seg unit in the prison and released 80 prisoners from their cells who then demolished the unit causing $34,000 in damages. [See PLN , , 2000, for details.] Kelley was convicted of assaulting the guard and faced a potential life sentence. In imposing the 8 year sentence, the jury found that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice had been negligent in allowing Kelley to escape from his control unit cell in the first place. Kelley represented himself pro se at the trial.
Virginia: On July 1, 2002, the body of Suffolk I State Prison guard Rebekah Ida Brown, 42, was found in the trunk of a car in Prince George county. Brown's body was dressed in her guard uniform.
Washington: On April 21, 2002, Scott Brimble, 30, a prisoner at the Okanogan county jail escaped from a jail recreation area using dental floss and toothpaste to cut through a wire mesh grill and pry it apart to escape. Brimble had been sentenced to 64 days in the jail in February, 2002, for failing to register as a sex offender. He faced additional time for probation violations.
Washington: On May 12, 2002, Raymond Green, 42, a prisoner at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe was stabbed in the neck while in the prison yard. Prisoners Scott Smith and Gus Turner were investigated by prison officials as the alleged assailants. No motive was given for the attack. The prison was locked down for a week and searched after the attack.
Washington: On May 30, 2002, Snohomish county jail nurse Paul Wentland, 56, was charged with custodial sexual assault for giving a 29 year old female prisoner unspecified pills in exchange for sex on six occasions. Apparently the prisoner became upset that Wentland did not provide her with pills after each encounter and she sent a friend a plastic bag with Wentland's semen in it and asked her to freeze it, saying she had been sexually assaulted. The semen was returned to the jail for insufficient postage and was duly investigated by Everett police. A DNA test matched the semen to Wentland.
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