JOHN EDWARDS

Sunday, January 10, 1999
Ex-officer tells of inmate's torture
By DAVID GREEN

FORT MEYERS - Former Charlotte Correctional Institution Capt. Kevin Browning leaned over an inmate who was bleeding to death and plucked hairs from the prisoner's eyebrows, chest and thighs, witnesses said.

''Each time he'd pull one out, he'd say, 'Boy, that's gotta hurt,' " former officer John Robbins testified.

Robbins' testimony came on the third day of the trial of seven former prison guards and supervisors in Fort Myers.

The men are charged with beating and tormenting John Edwards, a CCI inmate who slashed himself and bled to death while in restraints on Aug. 22, 1997.

While on the stand Friday, Robbins described how one former officer, Richard Wilks, pounded a bleeding and semi-conscious Edwards in the chest 15 times. Other officers taunted the inmate as they hauled him to the prison's medical wing.

''You better hope you die,'' Robbins recalled Browning telling the prisoner as they lugged him on a gurney, ''because you got another (expletive)-whipping coming.''

The HIV-positive Edwards had been transferred to the Charlotte prison three days earlier as punishment for biting a guard in the face at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution in Pasco County. Edwards was serving two life sentences for murdering his estranged wife and a second man.

Former Charlotte Capt. Donald Abraham organized a group of guards to ''smoke,'' or beat, Edwards in retaliation, Robbins testified. Robbins described that initial beating for the jury Friday.

''I grabbed his hair and hit his head against the steel bunk several times,'' Robbins recalled. ''(Abraham) asked him if he wanted to bite an officer here, and he said, 'No, sir! No, sir!' ''

Several other guards and supervisors swarmed over the inmate, Robbins testified. They punched, kicked and ''stomped" him.

Afterward, Robbins recalled, then-Capt. Abraham - the highest-ranking officer at the prison that night - questioned the inmate.

''He (Abraham) said to inmate Edwards, 'What happened here tonight?' '' Robbins testified. ''Inmate Edwards said, 'No, sir! No, sir!' He said, 'You need medical attention?' Inmate Edwards said, 'No, sir! No, sir!' ''

For the next three days, Robbins forced Edwards to kneel in his cell with his forehead touching the floor every time guards entered the housing unit, Robbins told the jury.

''It was a form of intimidation,'' Robbins testified. ''We were letting him know we had complete control over him.''

According to Robbins, former officer Paul Peck repeatedly ''airmailed'' the inmate's food - prison slang for slinging a prisoner's meal tray onto the floor.

''He told the inmate to get the food off the floor,'' Robbins said. ''He (Peck) then picked up the tray and hit him with it.''

Robbins pleaded guilty on July 10 to a charge of conspiring to violate Edwards' civil rights.

Two other men also pleaded guilty in the case.

Federal prosecutors are expected to rest their case next week.

David Green is a staff writer for the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota.


NOTE: I can't leave this entry without remarking that although this site shows that the gangs of criminals hired to work inside prisons are capable of depths of cruelty we normal people can't comprehend, it takes an uncommon brand of monster to torture someone as they die. I hope there's a special depth of hell reserved for such as the fiends who perpetrated this particular atrocity.

MARK BAILEY

FIGHT WITH JAILERS LED TO INMATE'S DEATH,
PATHOLOGISTS SAY

PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - A fight with jailers led to an inmate's death, says a state medical examiner, agreeing with the conclusions of two outside pathologists. After examining autopsy records and videos, District Medical Examiner Dr. Gary Cumberland said the altercation, which inmates who saw it called a beating, contributed to the Jan. 5 death of Mark Bailey at the Escambia County Jail.

``Had he not had that struggle, I don't think he would have died,'' Cumberland said Thursday.

Technically, Bailey died of an adrenaline rush that caused heart failure, but the death is classified as a homicide because it came at the hands of other people, Cumberland said.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating. FDLE agents also are looking into the death of a condemned killer at Florida State Prison in Starke after he, too, scuffled with guards July 17. Nine corrections officers have been suspended in that case, but no action has been taken against Escambia jailers.

Bailey, 39, died in the jail's holding area while several corrections officers restrained him after he apparently struck a female jailer. The Pensacola house painter had been jailed on charges of resisting an officer with violence, resisting an officer with disguise and battery on an officer.

Cumberland's findings coincide with those of two outside pathologists. They entered the case after Dr. William Bell, an assistant medical examiner who performed the initial autopsy, made no cause-of-death finding although he ruled out blunt-force trauma, internal injuries and suffocation.

Bailey's family hired Dr. Ronald Reeves, a former medical examiner in Volusia County, to conduct a second autopsy in January and he concluded the scuffle contributed to the death.

FDLE agents had a third autopsy performed by Dr. Joan Wood, the district medical examiner in Pinellas County. She is recovering from surgery and has not yet submitted a report.

Dr. Joseph H. Davis, a retired medical examiner from Miami, then reviewed the three autopsies on behalf of Bailey's family, and this week he, too, attributed the death to the fracas.

Sheriff Jim Lowman declined comment because the FDLE investigation has not yet been concluded. Two more inmates died at the jail Aug. 21, but their deaths have been ruled suicides, both by hanging.

WALTAIRE CHOUTE

MURDER SUSPECT HANGS HIMSELF IN JAIL CELL

MIAMI HERALD

BY DAVID OVALLE

Monday, May 28, 2007

A man accused of murdering a North Miami Burger King manager in a robbery killed himself at the Metro West Detention Center, a jail already under scrutiny for a string of inmate deaths.

Waltaire Choute, 23, hanged himself Saturday night inside his single-person cell, apparently using a bed sheet, a Miami-Dade corrections spokeswoman said Monday.

An internal affairs investigation is underway, said spokeswoman Janelle Hall, who added officers are supposed to check inmates every 20 minutes.

At least five inmates have died at Metro West, 13850 NW 41st St., during the past year.

An attorney for four inmates said he will meet with the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division on Tuesday. He had earlier lodged a complaint with the department.

''It's extremely suspicious that five inmates who have died within the past year, four within the past month and a half. It's got to be raising eyebrows,'' said attorney David Kubiliun.

Choute, charged with first-degree murder, was being held inb Metro West while awaiting trial.

Police say in April, he gunned down Jose Luis Leon Olivera, a married father who was the manager of a North Miami Burger King. He wore a mask and came away with no money, police said. One police lieutenant called him a ``cold-blooded killer.''

Detectives are still looking for his alleged accomplice, James Lapointe, 24.

Kubiliun is representing four inmates who died in custody at Metro West, a pretrial detention center:

• Lazaro Diaz died of a heart attack in his jail cell about 10 months ago. Kubiliun says the man complained of chest pains and may have been ignored by jailers.

• Rodolofo Ramos, an accused kidnapper, who suffered from diabetes and sarcoidosis and who died at a hospital after he was found unresponsive in his jail cell in March. His family says he was covered in insect bites and denied his medication. The corrections department says Ramos was given proper care and had severe medical problems.

*See Rodolfo Ramos' individual page - click "Home" to find the link to his page.

• Eugene Smith, 21, was found dead inside a single cell in April. Kubiliun says he had no medical history and a cause of death has not been determined. He was awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge.

• Kippo Pruitt, 57, awaiting trial for a drug charge, died May 21 after 10 days in the hospital, ubiliun said. The attorney believes Pruitt may not have been given his insulin while at the jail.

Hall, the jail spokeswoman, said investigators are reviewing all the cases.

''Sometimes they come into our custody with preexisting conditions but nevertheless, we are conducting full investigations into those cases,'' Hall said.

ANTONIO RICHBURG

RICHLAND CORONERÍS JURY FINDS A PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIC INMATE HANGED HIMSELF AFTER NOT BEING GIVEN HIS MEDICINE FOR 7 DAYS

By RICK BRUNDRETT
Staff Writer

A special Richland County jury ruled Friday that county jail workers contributed to the May suicide of a mentally ill inmate.

The six-member jury found after the coronerís inquest that Antonio Richburg died ìdue to a lack of standard of care by providersî at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.

The verdict did not identify specific individuals.

Coroner Gary Watts, who presided over the rarely used court proceeding, said afterward the ruling gives him the go-ahead to meet with Solicitor Barney Gieseís office to pursue possible criminal charges through the county grand jury.

Asked who might be targeted, Watts replied, "I think it's fairly obvious that the whole issue is about medical care, so it falls back on Prison Health Services."

"If it hadn't been for the inaction of other people, he would still be alive," Watts said.

The county has contracted with Prison Health Services since 2001 to provide medical services to inmates and has paid the Tennessee-based company a total of more than $5 million.

Critics nationally have accused the company, which serves about 270,000 jail and prison inmates in 38 states, of providing poor - sometimes fatal - medical care.

Testimony during Friday's hearing revealed there were no jail records indicating Richburg, 29, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, had received any anti-psychotic or antidepressant medications for seven days before he hanged himself in his cell May 20.

A probate court order required jail staff to strictly follow a treatment plan for Richburg developed by Just Care Inc., a private company in Columbia that provides mental health services to prisoners. Richburg's widow, Tiffany Richburg, tearfully read to jurors a letter her husband had written to her the day before his suicide. In the letter - a copy of which was obtained earlier by The State - Antonio Richburg complained he had not received his medications for seven days. "I don't know what went wrong, but I just know something went wrong," Tiffany Richburg said after Friday's hearing.

The mother of three said the jury's verdict would satisfy her "as long as it prevents another person from dying at the Richland County detention center."

"This is the third widow I've stood with in the last two years who has lost a husband in the Richland detention center because of Prison Health Services," Richburg's lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, said afterward. Harpootlian represented the families of Bobby Mott, who suffered hypothermia in his cell in January 2003 and died a week later; and Marc Washington Sr., who hanged himself in his cell in October 2003. Prison Health Services and the county have faced at least six lawsuits since 2003 that contend jail inmates didn't receive proper medical care, a State newspaper investigation found earlier. County attorney Larry Smith, who attended Fridayís hearing, declined comment on the verdict. He said he didnít know whether Prison Health Services' contract would be renewed, noting, "The whole situation needs to be shared with administration and (County) Council."

Efforts to reach Prison Health Services officials afterward were unsuccessful.

Dave Almeida, executive director of the S.C. chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, who attended Friday's hearing, said afterward that county officials should seriously consider dropping PHS. "Antonio Richburg didn't slip through the cracks; this guy fell through a canyon," he said.

Under state law, a coroner has the authority to call and question witnesses in a coroner's inquest. The purpose of a coroner's inquest is to find information that investigators otherwise might not be able to obtain. Watt's used the procedure last year in a fatal police shooting.

Jurors also can question witnesses - and the five-woman, one-man jury had plenty of questions for many of the 15 witnesses Friday. Watts engaged in a tense exchange with Adriane Gillespie, a licensed practical nurse who testified she made a "grammatical error" when she noted in Richburg's medical records that she had received a prescription order for him on May 11, though she acknowledged the order wasn't actually given until nearly a week later.

"Miss Gillespie, weíve had nothing but misdocumentations," Watts said. "It seems very strange to me that when the only time something is documented, it is the wrong date and the wrong time."

Chief Deputy Coroner Ted Kennedy testified Gillespie told him that she and other staff nurses didnít always follow protocols in administering medications, though he added she refused to admit to that in writing.

Watts would not let Gillespie's lawyer, Kana Rahman, ask questions during the hearing.

Kennedy testified that another nurse, Vera Hanna, told him she had ìnever seen anything like the medical department at the jail, and that she "knows a lot of information that could get a lot people in trouble."

Hanna, a registered nurse who no longer works at the jail, testified that understaffing was a problem in the eight months she worked at the jail. She said she often was the only nurse on her shift for the entire jail, which she noted had an inmate population then of up to 1,100. But Hanna could not say how many inmates needed medication. "When you have one medical staff (worker) for the whole facility, you can't follow protocol," she told jurors.

Reach Brundrett at (803) 771-8484 or rbrundrett@thestate.com

WILLIAM GAMEZ

PROBE INTO INMATE'S SUICIDE FOCUSING ON RECORD-KEEPING

Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Apr. 26, 2004

SHARPES -(AP) -- The Brevard County Sheriff's Office is investigating whether jail guards falsified records on the day of an inmate's apparent suicide.

Sheriff Phil Williams confirmed Friday that investigators are looking into whether officers lied about where they were when William Gamez died after apparently hanging himself on March 21.

One record that possibly was altered included the identities of the officers who freed Gamez's body from a bed sheet tied to a window grate in his jail cell.

Under state law, the officers could be suspended, or dismissed, if they doctored records. They also could face criminal charges, such as altering a public document or official misconduct.

The sheriff reopened the investigation into Gamez's death after learning about a staff barbecue held the same day. Williams has said the issue is whether the barbecue turned into an hourslong distraction that kept people from doing their jobs.

Three officers have been placed on paid leave while the investigation into Gamez's death continues. They are Sgt. Stephen Feaster, Sgt. Brian Seeley and Cpl. Frederick Abbey. Williams would not say whether the three are under investigation in the records probe.

Pat McGuire, the executive director of the police union that represents some officers, declined to comment.

The sheriff has said the barbecue incident also prompted him to look more closely at four other suicides at the jail since December. He does not suspect foul play in any of the deaths but is concerned about possible policy violations that ``might have stopped us from doing everything we should have done to prevent the deaths.''

ROBERT WILLIAMS

MAN HELD AT COLLIER COUNTY JAIL HANGS HIMSELF

Associated Press
Posted on Thu, Feb. 19, 2004

NAPLES, Fla. - A man being held in Collier County Jail committed suicide by hanging himself with a sheet, officials said.

Robert Williams, 45, was in jail on charges of domestic violence and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He showed no signs of being suicidal, sheriff's Chief Greg Smith said Wednesday.

Deputies cut Williams down when they found him in his single cell Sunday afternoon. He was pronounced dead at Naples Community Hospital later that day.

"It doesn't appear to have been a foreseeable event," Smith said.

The last suicide at the county jail occurred in 1997, Smith said. Guards are required to check on inmates every hour, he said.

FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL

Kelly Duda and Concrete Films have produced a documentary which details the corruption and greed that led the Arkansas Department of Correction to spread death from Arkansas prisons to the entire world. Hear the story from the mouths of those responsible for the harvesting of infected human blood plasma, and its sale to be made into medicines.

Duda's award-winning film unflinchingly documents the whole story the U.S. government and the state of Arkansas have tried to keep hidden from the world.

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to order your own copy of
"Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal"

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to visit the
Factor 8 Documentary website

Please help spread the word about this important film,
along with the urls to the linked pages.

This PRUP (Prison Reform Unity Project) site owned by

Linda Tant Miller
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