Last inmate sentenced in jail attack

6-25-15 West Virginia:

HUNTINGTON - With the final punishment now ordered, nobody will serve additional prison time for their role in the attempted killing of another inmate at Western Regional Jail.

James Roy Michael Keeney, 49, of Huntington, received a 1- to 5-year prison sentence Monday, but Cabell Circuit Judge Alfred Ferguson ordered he serve it simultaneous to a 40-year prison sentence from a prior conviction.

Keeney pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding in connection to the Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, 2013, attack on suspected sex offender Zachary Matthew Lawson, then 18. Court documents indicate the attack involved an apparent beating and choking.

An April 2015 indictment initially charged Keeney, three additional prisoners and four correctional officers. The case ends with convictions against three prisoners and all charges dismissed against the remaining five defendants.

Others pleading guilty in the case were the already-convicted murderer Steven Lee Adkins, 29, of Apple Gove, West Virginia, and burglar James Dennis Galloway, 37, of Charleston. Ferguson also allowed their sentences - 3 to 15 years and 1 to 3 years respectively - to be served simultaneously to prior convictions.

One Account of Abuse and Fear in Texas Youth Detention

3-7-2007 Texas:

Joseph Galloway says he was molested at 15 by a female corrections officer in a Texas Youth Commission detention center and later raped by a fellow inmate as a guard stood by.

“That’s when I started to try to kill myself,” Mr. Galloway, now 19, said by telephone from another youth facility as he waited late Tuesday to be interviewed by the Texas Rangers.

Mr. Galloway’s account is among about 150 new complaints that have emerged from 44 secure state schools, halfway houses and residential youth care programs in Texas as a result of several overlapping inquiries into accusations of sexual abuse and other mistreatment there.

A senior investigator, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to talk to news organizations, said that only Wednesday, a registered sex offender was found to be working at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, near San Angelo, a Youth Commission facility operated by a private contractor.

“The good news is we’re finding plenty to inquire about,” said Jay Kimbrough, the special master appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to investigate after a scandal broke last month with news reports that the commission had covered up repeated sexual encounters between at least 10 boys and 2 administrators at the West Texas State School, in Pyote, from 2003 to 2005. More recently, officials said that at least three girls had been sexually abused by a corrections officer at another facility, in Brownwood.

A joint legislative committee of inquiry is to hold a hearing on Thursday in Austin, with testimony expected from the Texas ranger whose report on the events at Pyote remained undisclosed from 2005 until a few weeks ago.

Inmate assault brings year behind bars

8-25-2010 Virginia:

Assaulting a convicted child sex offender at the jail will cost inmate Denver J. Owens a year behind bars, a judge ruled Tuesday in Frederick County District Court.

No matter what happens in three other criminal cases against Owens, Judge W. Milnor Roberts ordered the 20-year-old Frederick man's yearlong punishment for attacking inmate Jonathan M. Bonita run consecutive to any other sentence Owens may get.

Owens faces burglary, assault and violation of probation charges at three hearings in September and October.

On Tuesday, Owens pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in the attack of Bonita on June 24 at the jail, but he declined to offer a statement before sentence was imposed.

Standing beside Assistant State's Attorney Michael J. Moore, Bonita, 19, said a few words, however. The Frederick man told Roberts he was tired of being harassed by other inmates.

County to pay $4 million to settle jail-beating lawsuit

4-20-2009 California:

Illegal immigrant, accused of molestation, was left brain-damaged after inmates attacked him, his lawyer says.

County officials have agreed to pay more than $4 million to settle a lawsuit brought by an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was beaten by inmates while in custody at the Orange County jail, the man's attorney said Monday.

The settlement appears to be the largest ever paid by Orange County for an in-custody incident involving county sheriffs, according to county officials and the man's lawyer.

Fernando Ramirez, then 21, was left brain-damaged by inmates in Module A at the Orange County Central Jail in June 2006. He was jailed after a 6-year-old girl told her mother a stranger touched her over her clothes on her private parts at El Salvador Park in Santa Ana. Ramirez was charged with child molestation but eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of non-sexual battery, said his attorney, Mark Eisenberg.

Prisoner bloodied, guards fired

11-5-2009 Michigan:

IONIA, Mich. (WOOD) - No one is disputing that Antonio Rios sustained facial injuries and two broken teeth while he was inside the Ionia Maximum Correctional Facility.

What is contested is who's at fault: Rios, five corrections officer who were fired over the incident, or the state of Michigan.

Carlene and Silvestre Rios are Antonio's parents. Their son, 23, described staff corruption at the prison in letter after letter.

On October 28, 2008, Rios was injured when five corrections officers -- the Emergency Response Team -- entered his cell because, officers said, he wouldn't return an item that could be used as a weapon.

His lunch tray.

"He don't got no front teeth," his mother, Carlene, said. "They beat the hell out my son. Is they crazy?"

She said she is "outraged. I'm mad. I don't care what anybody says. I am very upset about this."

The state of Michigan shared the sentiment and fired the officers all at once, a termination that is very rare. Of the 91 corrections workers the state fired this year, only eight involved excessive force.

"We don't tolerate it. I can tell you that," said Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman John Cordell. "We don't tolerate excessive force in out department."

Carlos Castillo was one of the five officers fired.

"Your adrenaline is pumping," he told 24 Hour News 8. "This is a maximum security prison and most of the calls where the response team is needed is in our administrative segregation unit which houses the worst prisoners that Michigan has to offer."

Rapists lawsuit proceeds against Livingston County Jail guards

6-11-2008 Michigan:

A convicted child rapist can continue with a lawsuit that accuses Livingston County guards of allowing other inmates to beat him up, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Shaun Leary of Pinckney sued a jail officer who told inmates in February 2000 that he was charged with raping a 9-year-old girl. He also alleged that officers told him there would be no protection from guards if he was attacked.

Inmates later beat Leary, then 21, severely. He was treated at the hospital for facial fractures and a skull fracture.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Leary's suit can continue against a guard who he says was deliberately indifferent to his safety when he told two inmates what Leary had been charged with. The officer, Scott Stone, had sought governmental immunity.

Leary, 30, is serving a prison term on the rape charges.

Accused double-murderer who allegedly targeted sex offenders attacks inmate offender in Clallam County jail

7-1-2012 Washington:

PORT ANGELES — A Sequim man accused of double murder, who allegedly told police he was targeting sex offenders, was placed in a segregated cell last week in the Clallam County jail after he stabbed a man serving time for failing to register as a sex offender, said jail Superintendent Ron Sukert.

Patrick Drum, 34, stabbed Joseph W. Recoy, 19, of Port Angeles with the sharpened handle of a plastic utensil, Sukert said last week.

Recoy received minor puncture wounds from the combination fork-spoon allegedly wielded by Drum and was not hospitalized, Sukert said.

Drum is awaiting an Aug. 6 trial on two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the deaths of Jerry W. Ray, 56, of Port Angeles and Gary L. Blanton Jr., 28, of Sequim, Drum's housemate.

The bodies of Ray and Blanton were found inside their homes June 3, the same day Drum was arrested.