A group of cases pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia paint a picture of senseless violence and petty retaliation by officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the U.S. Penitentiary-Lee near rural Pennington Gap. 

At this same prison in 2023, BOP prisoner Andrew Fields filed a complaint alleging that he was repeatedly beaten by guards while isolated and shackled in a Special Housing Unit (SHU) cell. It was dismissed by the district court and then revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, as PLN reported. However, the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) subsequently reburied the suit with its ruling in Goldey v. Fields, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Dec. 2024, p.40.; and Aug. 2025, p.48.]

Like Fields, prisoner Marcos Santiago said that he was held in restraints in SHU while at least seven guards “slammed [their] shields on [him],” fracturing a rib, and “punched [him] multiple times in his testicles.” They then denied him medical attention, he said, and forced him to deny his injuries in a video-taped interview to corroborate incident reports they falsified. They also allegedly destroyed his property, including a $505 money order for the filing fee in a lawsuit he planned to file against the BOP. Santiago said that the June 2022 beating was the guards’ retaliation for grievances he filed against the prison Trust Fund Supervisor, who repeatedly refused to provide a statement of his trust account to a federal court in Illinois, where he had another case pending against BOP. See: Santiago v. Streeval, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 7:23-cv-00064.

But Santiago wasn’t the only victim of guard violence; he heard them beating other prisoners from his SHU cell during the summer of 2022. And the assaults didn’t stop there. When prisoner Dentavia McNair asked a group of guard lieutenants for protective custody in September 2023, they demanded that he write down the names of the prisoners who threatened him. When he refused to be a “snitch,” they called him a “pussy” and a “bitch”; the verbal assault then escalated into a physical attack, as they tackled him to the floor and cut off his clothing—including a dreadlock from his hair. They then threw him into restraints in an SHU cell, he said, forcing him to kneel there for hours while they made intermittent visits for more assaults, calling him a racial slur as they gave karate chops to his throat. Afterward, he also was allegedly forced to videotape a false denial that he’d been assaulted or injured. See: McNair v. United States, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 1:24-cv-00030.

Prisoner Dana Johnson said that he was restrained and tossed into SHU in July 2022 when he objected to a cell transfer; his new cellmate was also from Washington, D.C., and Johnon feared old rivalries would resurface. Guard Lt. Corbin then told him that “this is where the game starts”—explaining that “[e]very two hours we’re going to come to check on you. A total of eight hours. And if you don’t comply with what we tell you to do, we’re going to beat your ass.” In fact, the repeated assaults spanned 24 hours, Johnson said. “I’m glad that police officer killed George Floyd,” Lt. Pollard whispered threateningly. “If it was me, I would have just shot that n*****.” In addition to being forced to give a video-taped lie that he had suffered no assault or injury, Johnson said that he received false disciplinary charges that landed him in segregation for a week. See: Johnson v. United States, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 1:24-cv-00029.

More Prisoners Allege More Horrors

Prisoner Bryan Kimble was not spared because she was transgender; in fact, that prompted guards to treat her worse, she said. She was thrown in SHU in October 2023, after they falsely labeled her a child molester—“cho mo”—and an exhibitionist masturbator—“dick jacker”—hoping other prisoners would assault her first. When that didn’t happen, the guards took her to SHU, where they “repeatedly slammed [her] head into the concrete wall” and “punched her in the head,” insisting that she falsely admit to calling her cellmate a racial slur and saying that this had provoked him to commit the assault. A guard named Ridings allegedly added a threat: “[D]on’t tell [a superior] anything—we have people all over the BOP.” See: Kimble v. United States, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 1:24-cv-00035.

When prisoner Ryan Amelia was restrained in SHU in August 2023, he said that guards “pulled down his pants and poured an unknown liquid substance over his genitals.” When he asked for water, they allegedly complied by “filling up a blue latex glove with an unknown liquid and pouring [it] into his mouth.” Held in four-point restraints for 72 hours, Amelia was spit on and hit so hard with a shield that it ripped off his facial hair. During one of several “medical assessments,” guards broke his toes. For all that trouble, he also got false disciplinary reports; BOP psychologist Bianca Bullock accused him of selling his prescription drugs to other prisoners and reported that she suspected him of abusing Suboxone. That landed him in isolation in a “dry cell” for six days. After that, he spent another 13 days with a cellmate who repeatedly tried to suffocate him. Guards left them alone, instructing other prisoners to do the same because the two were “lovers” enjoying a “honeymoon.” Amelia’s injuries eventually required his hospitalization and recommended surgery that he has yet to receive. See: Amelia v. United States, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 1:24-cv-00042. 

Still another prisoner, identified as “A.S.,” was taunted with “cho mo” by guards who “marked” him upon arrival by reading his prior incident reports aloud, for other prisoners to hear. “I already killed one piece of shit and would not mind another,” hissed guard Cpt. James Bowles. When guard Lt. Michael Chad Hamilton announced that he was taking A.S. to SHU for the “platinum treatment,” Warden Jason Streeval allegedly insisted: “No, we are going to put that child molesting piece of shit on the yard.” Dr. Karen Wasim filed a report summarizing her Psychology Services Transfer Intake Screening, concluding that A.S.’s “mental status was devoid of any clinical markers suggestive of acute symptomology or clinical distress.” Except that no such screening occurred, A.S. said. Nor did he “decline[] programming” and “den[y] interest in available treatment options,” as Wasim’s report also claimed. Instead, he was taken to SHU in October 2023 to be beaten by guards, who ripped his beard off his face and squeezed his genitals so hard that his penis began to bleed. They then sexually assaulted him with a mop handle. Nurse Spencer Bowman’s subsequent report made no mention of A.S.’s bloody genital and anus, but it dutifully recorded that he reported no injuries—just as Warden Streeval had threatened him not to report. Over the next eight hours, A.S. was allegedly subjected to more violence as guards returned to conduct intermittent “restraint checks.” See: A.S. v. United States, USDC (W.D. Va.), Case No. 1:24-cv-00046.

Attorney Kristin McGough of the Washington Lawyer’s Committee, which is representing several prisoners in their cases, said that abuse by guards at USP-Lee “is not a well-kept secret.” SHU guards in particular “have a protocol,” she said, and “[t[]here’s no real attempt to hide what they’re doing. If anything, things are getting worse.”  

Additional source: NPR News

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