Mississippi Indictments Illustrate Prison Phone Corruption
by Derek Gilna
Two Mississippi businessmen, Irb Benjamin, 69, and Sam Waggoner, 61, face federal charges in connection with a scheme in which kickbacks were paid to former Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) Commissioner Christopher B. Epps in return for the awarding of state and county contracts to Mississippi Correctional Management (MCM) and Global Tel*Link (GTL).
According to court documents, Waggoner, a paid consultant for GTL, the nation’s largest prison phone service provider, received from the company “five (5) percent of all revenue generated by the inmate telephone services contracts it had with the state of Mississippi.”
In turn, Waggoner allegedly provided bribes to Epps. According to federal prosecutors, “Specifically, on or about July 30, 2014, and on or about August 26, 2014, the defendant, Sam Waggoner, paid kickbacks in the form of cash generated by his monthly commission from GTL to Christopher B. Epps,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2).
Prisoners’ rights advocates, including the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), the parent organization and publisher of Prison Legal News, have long been critical of phone contracts entered into between companies like GTL and corrections agencies that force prisoners and their families ...
DC Circuit Denies Appeal of Order to Release Force-Feeding Videos
by Derek Gilna
Abu Wa’el (Jihad) Dhiab was imprisoned at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when he went on a hunger strike. Authorities then repeatedly extracted him from his cell and force-fed him. Thirty-five videos of that procedure convinced a District of Columbia federal district court to stop the force-feeding, and the court ordered the partial redaction, release and publication of the videos after various media outlets intervened in Dhiab’s pending habeas corpus petition. Unsurprisingly, the federal government was uncooperative in releasing the embarrassing videotapes.
The government appealed to the D.C. Court of Appeals, seeking an interlocutory order barring release of the videos or in the alternative a writ of mandamus prohibiting their publication. In a unanimous May 29, 2015 decision, the Court denied both requests. The appellate court observed that it has “jurisdiction from all final decisions of the district courts,” provided they are “final decision[s] ... by which a district court disassociates itself from a case.”
As the D.C. Circuit noted, “The district court’s ... orders in this case plainly do not match that description ... [since it ordered] that ‘counsel shall work cooperatively ... ...
Ninth Circuit Finds Forfeited Assets Satisfy Restitution Order; Eleventh Circuit Disagrees
by Derek Gilna
Greg Carter served a 70-month federal prison sentence for defrauding U.S. airlines with phony tickets, along with several co-defendants. As part of his conviction he forfeited cash, real estate and other assets for the purpose of ...
Breaking News: CDCR Settles Solitary Confinement Class-Action Suit
by Derek Gilna
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has long been criticized for its excessive use of solitary confinement, and no facility has been subject to more criticism than Pelican Bay State Prison, which confines over 1,100 prisoners in supermax conditions that some observers have called “torture.”
However, after six years of litigation, dozens of depositions, multiple expert witness statements and reports, the exchange of tens of thousands of documents in discovery and multiple motions, a federal lawsuit that began as a pro se prisoner complaint in 2009 and later became a class-action finally settled on August 31, 2015 following months of intense negotiations. [See: PLN, Oct. 2014, p.30; Oct. 2012, p.1].
The settlement discussions came to a head shortly after the CDCR’s final motion to dismiss was denied and discovery was closed by the district court.
As part of the settlement, the CDCR agreed to stop placing prisoners in indeterminate solitary confinement in Special Housing Units (SHUs) based upon alleged “security threat group” (gang) membership; to release long-term SHU prisoners back to general population after a transition period; and to institute a modified two-year Step Down Program, ...
Valley Street Jail Pays SHU Prisoners $244,000
by Derek Gilna
Valley Street Jail in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, will pay $244,000 to three former prisoners after an adverse 2004 jury verdict put the spotlight on substandard conditions in the jail’s Special Housing Unit, or SHU. Antonio King received $5,500; Jason Suprenant, ...
Delaware: Drop in Prison Phone Rates Called a “Drop in the Bucket”
by Derek Gilna
Delaware’s prison phone rates will be reduced as a result of a new contract entered into between the state Department of Correction (DOC) and Global Tel*Link (GTL) that will run from July 21, 2015 through ...
BOP Ordered to Pay Prisoner’s Attorneys $41,703 for Discovery Abuses
by Derek Gilna
Federal prisoner Randall Todd Royer, also known as Ismail Royer, has engaged in a long legal battle with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) related to his conditions of confinement, stemming from the BOP classifying him as a ...
Former New York Prisoner Receives $3,375,000 Settlement for Wrongful Conviction
by Derek Gilna
A New York man who was the victim of egregious police misconduct obtained a $3.375 million settlement from the State of New York after serving 17 years in prison for two murders he did not commit. Martin ...
$400,000 Settlement in New Jersey Juvenile Solitary Confinement Suit
by Derek Gilna
In December 2013, the Juvenile Law Center, a non-profit public interest law firm based in Philadelphia, won a $400,000 settlement on behalf of two adolescents who spent months in solitary confinement in New Jersey’s juvenile justice system. Advocates hoped ...
Illinois Supreme Court Affirms Supervised Release Period Despite Sentencing Omission
by Derek Gilna
The Illinois Supreme Court has affirmed the imposition of a period of mandatory supervised release (MSR) that was inadvertently omitted from a sentence by the trial court. Billy McChriston was convicted in 2004 of unlawful delivery of ...
