An architect says in a class action that she and other women were put in an Alameda County jail with walls stained with feces and blood, and that she was not provided with menstrual pads or tampons. Cynthia N. Turano sued a number of Alameda County Sheriff’s Office employees, as well as Oakland police for … Read more
PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia’s former top prosecutor has been moved to a federal prison in Oklahoma to serve his five-year sentence for accepting a bribe. At Seth Williams’ sentencing on October 24, a federal judge said the former DA sold his office to “parasites” and ordered Williams jailed immediately. He’s been in a small Philadelphia prison … Read more
A Maryland corrections officer was accused of being a high-ranking member of the 8-Trey Crips street gang and indicted on 35 charges, including first-degree attempted murder, drug distribution and smuggling of contraband, state officials announced Thursday. Antoine Fordham was the initial target of the nearly year-long investigation into gang activity in Maryland prisons by the … Read more
It has become an annual ritual in Louisiana: Nearly every winter, the state’s public defenders run out of money. Last year, 33 of the state’s 42 local indigent defense offices cut staff or placed thousands of poor defendants on a wait list. The New Orleans public defender’s office began refusing clients, leaving hundreds to sit … Read more
In early September, a prisoner in New York’s Sullivan Correctional Facility was given a glass-laced pastry by a correctional officer in what he describes as an attempt to murder him. Dr. Al-Fatah Stewart, a doctor of divinity and metaphysics, has suffered psychological and physical torture throughout his 19-year incarceration, and this is just the latest … Read more
Even in a prison system known for questionable deaths, the case of Randall Jordan-Aparo stands out. Jordan-Aparo, a petty criminal known to suffer from a serious blood disorder, was gassed by corrections officers at Franklin Correctional Institution while pleading for medical attention. He collapsed and died in his cell, his corpse and clothing coated with … Read more
A notice of a $200,000 settlement was filed Tuesday in federal court in the case of a severely diabetic 20-year-old who died in the Bi-State Justice Building jail last year. Morgan Angerbauer died of diabetic ketoacidosis in the early hours of July 1, 2016, after being found unresponsive in a medical observation cell and forced … Read more
NEW YORK – Four years after a violent attack on a Downstate Correctional Facility inmate, two former correction officers were convicted in federal court Monday of the beating, and of falsifying records to cover it up. Former Downstate correction officers Kathy Scott and George Santiago Jr. were convicted in the beating of then-54-year-old Kevin Moore, … Read more
Countless women have been raped by male guards at the for-profit Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas. The male guards have open access to women detainees’ cells. Any time, day or night, guards can enter women’s cells and abuse them. The Karnes County Residential Center is a jail, a prison that is called … Read more
TULSA, OK — Last Labor Day weekend, Tommi Ziegler watched in horror as her pregnant daughter stood sobbing against a car, swollen belly straining against her white tank top, hands bound behind her back with handcuffs. A routine traffic stop had devolved into a crisis. “I was shaking,” Ziegler said. Police had pulled their car … Read more
A Santa Rosa Correctional Institution officer has been charged for allegedly using excessive force and fracturing an inmate’s jaw and then lying to investigators about the incident. Quintavia J. Walker faces one count each of battery on an inmate and submitting inaccurate information on a use of force report, according to a Florida Department of … Read more
For more than three decades, Frank O’Connell had told anyone who would listen that he did not murder a maintenance worker named Jay French in an apartment complex in Los Angeles County. This week, the county’s Board of Supervisors awarded O’Connell a $15 million settlement to end his civil rights lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department. … Read more