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.

Vicious, feared attack leaves Pa. inmate comatose

8-29-2010 Pennsylvania:

SCRANTON, Pa. – If his diary and witness accounts are to be believed, Nicholas Pinto endured months of physical, sexual and mental abuse in prison. Guards roughed him up, made him stand naked in a cold cell for hours at a time, and taunted him relentlessly. A fellow inmate raped him night after night, beat him when he resisted, and stole his possessions.

And no one, he claimed, did a thing about it.

"The overall treatment I have received from both the prison and (the prison's) medical providers (is) unconstitutional, insufficient, cruel, inhumane and shamefully unacceptable," Pinto wrote in April.

He feared for his life, yet the officials responsible for his safety appear to have ignored his pleas for help — nor did they heed a warning from the prison chaplain that Pinto was in grave danger.

An accused child pornographer, he was at the bottom of the prison hierarchy. So what came next was perhaps inevitable.

The 29-year-old former Connecticut man was heading back to his cell block from a recreation area when he was ambushed by an inmate with a history of violence who was supposed to be locked down — but wasn't. The inmate knocked him to the floor and stomped on his head at least 15 times "with all his might," according to a police report. Pinto's face was shattered, and he suffered brain injuries that left him comatose.

After the attack, his assailant had enough time to return to his cell and use a rag to wipe evidence from his black sneakers, police said.

WI- Jail inmates accused of sexually assaulting inmate

10-14-2008 Wisconsin:

Two Fond du Lac County prisoners accused of sexually assaulting and attacking another prisoner in the jail have been charged.

John S. Hall Jr., 32, of 305 S. Park Ave., and Otto L. Fountain, 18, of Oshkosh, face charges of first degree sexual assault, battery by prisoners and lewd and lascivious behavior.

They are accused of sexually assaulting a convicted sex offender in the Huber Dorm of the jail in early June. Hall yelled, “There’s a toucher in the dorm” to single out the man to other prisoners, according to the report.

After the man told Fountain about his then pending case involving a 13-year-old, Fountain and Hall began to attack and sexually assault him, according to the complaint.

Preliminary hearings for both men are scheduled Oct. 17. ..News Source.. by The Reporter Staff