An Ohio prisoner will spend an additional three years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to theft charges stemming from an elaborate credit card and telephone scam he ran from behind bars.

Lonny Lee Bristow, 27, was already serving a 9year 11month sentence at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, OH, for retaliation, aiding an escape, harassment by an inmate and telephone harassment, when he was convicted September 5, 2000 of three counts of theft.

Prison officials began investigating Bristow in December 1999 after he'd lost his telephone privileges for making threats and throwing something at a guard. Informants also told prison investigators that Bristow had been using a bogus credit card to make mailorder purchase by phone.

An internal prison investigative report obtained by the Columbus Dispatch revealed that Bristow stole the identity of Praveen Arcot after reading Arcot's name in a newspaper announcement of his hiring as a software engineer by a Columbus company.

Prison investigator David See told the Dispatch that Bristow devised a way to bypass security features on the automated inmate telephone system. That allowed him to call the Nelsonville, Ohio police department and, posing as a deputy from California, obtain the ...

In the June 2000, issue of PLN we reported that a federal district court in Illinois had dismissed a class action lawsuit challenging the phone rates charged to consumers who accept phone calls from prisoners in Illinois prisons and jails. The court's ruling is published at: Arsberry v. Illinois, 117 F. Supp.2d 743 (ND IL 2000).

The case is on appeal and PLN will report its outcome. A number of similar suits challenging prison jail phone rates have been dismissed by federal courts around the country and are on appeal. This is the first of those rulings to be published. Other suits challenging prison and jail phone rates in state courts are still pending.

Five weeks after it opened, the Idaho Correctional Center (ICC), went on lockdown following a non-violent protest by prisoners there. Corrections Corporation of America operates the $50 million 1,250-bed prison.

In early July 2000, CCA began moving Idaho prisoners from its New Mexico facilities. According to prison officials, the prisoners objected to more stringent rules at the new CCA prison south of Boise, including a prohibition on beards and higher telephone call charges.

The work-stoppage prompted an immediate response from state prison officials, who issued an "open letter" to ICC prisoners reminding them that, "refusing to work will not be tolerated.. and could result in placement in Administrative Segregation for an extended period of time."

PLN doesn't know how long the protest and lockdown lasted.


Source: The Associated Press

A Washington DOC investigator allegedly left his job at the state women's prison in Purdy with a souvenir: a tape recording of Mary K. Letourneau talking on the phone with her attorney.

After starting a new job at the state Attorney General's office in 1998, the investigator played the tape to entertain co-workers, sources inside the AG's office told the Seattle Times.

Robert McGuire, who was a DOC "Intelligence and Investigations Officer" at the state reformatory before assuming the same position at the Purdy prison, denies ever having the tape. But two co-workers say they heard it, and a third says she turned down an offer to hear it.

"He was right over there, playing it loud, and they were making jokes," said Steve Schrum, an auditor who says he heard the tape twice.

On the tape, the witness say, Letourneau complained to her lawyer about a comment her estranged husband made on a TV talk show. She asked why she couldn't get visitation rights to see her children, and her lawyer told her a convicted child molester loses that option.

Joseph Gragnelli, a fellow investigator, says he reported the tape-playing incident to his boss, Curtis Edwards, in late June ...

A former Alabama state auditor, County commissioner and another man pleaded guilty in July 1999 to federal charges stemming from a prison pay phone scam operated in Alabama and Louisiana by Global Tel*Link, a Mobile-based company. Former state auditor Terry Ellis pleaded guilty to tax evasion. Former Mobile County Commissioner Dan Wiley and salesman Donald G. Bahouth pleaded guilty to tax evasion and money laundering.

In exchange for the pleas, the government dropped conspiracy and mail fraud charges, according to The Associated Press. In addition, the three agreed to testify against the two remaining defendants named in the indictment. They are political consultant and lobbyist Willie F. "Buddy" Hamner and businessman William T.J. "Billy" Boyett.

The federal indictment accuses the five men of defrauding the federal government, the state of Alabama, Mobile county

taxpayers and families of jail detainees and prisoners over a four-year period.

Global Tel*Link, previously known as Global Telcoin and United Telcoin, bilked customers who accepted automated collect calls from prisoners by padding minutes and adding hidden charges. Then in order to lower the size of the commissions paid by the company to state and local governments, fake phone sales figures were used in accounting reports.

Ellis, ...

On June 20, 2000, a class action suit was filed in King county (Seattle) superior court in Washington. The suit claims that various phone companies that have contracted with the Washington Department of Corrections to provide collect call services for Washington prisoners have violated RCW 80.36.520 and RCW 19.86.090, of the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

The complaint states that people receiving in state long distance calls from Washington prisoners are not informed of the rates they are being charged for the call. People residing in other states who receive long distance collect calls from Washington prisoners were not afforded an opportunity to learn the rates they were being charged prior to November 1, 1999, when the Federal Communications Commission mandated disclosure of the rates. This lack of rate notification violates RCW 80.36.520 which requires that phone companies inform consumers of the rate they are being charged for phone services. Violations of the statute are actionable in state court with damages presumed as the cost of service, plus $200 per violation (i.e., per call). RCW 19.86.090 allows for civil suits that seek triple damages, injunctions and attorney fees for violations of the state Consumer Protection Act.

The class representative plaintiffs are ...

by Matthew T. Clarke

A federal district court in California has approved a sweeping settlement of hearing impaired prisoners' claims in a civil rights, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Rehabilitation Act (RA) class-action suit against the Santa Clara County (California) Department of Corrections (DOC). In doing so, the court approved a settlement award of $72,000 for the named prisoner plaintiffs, $196,455 in attorney fees, and $9,841 for costs.

Anthony Padilla, Criss Brown, Jill Brown, and Bruce Lambart are hearing impaired prisoners who filed a class-

action lawsuit against the DOC alleging violations of Title 11 of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12131, et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, as well as state claims under the California Unruh Civil Rights Act, Cal. Civil Code § 51, and the California Public Accommodations Law, Cal. Civil Code §§ 54 and 54.2, et seq., and a variety of other federal and state claims not specified in the settlement. Amanda K. Wilson of the Public Interest Law Firm in San Jose, CA, Linda D. Kilb and Arlene B. Meyerson of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc. in Berkeley, CA, and John W. Fowler, Susan K. ...

On February 24, 2000, a federal jury In Augusta, Georgia awarded 1100,000 in damages to a Danish citizen who was denied medical care and phone calls to his family in Denmark while he was awaiting trial in the Lincoln county jail in Georgia. The ruling is historic because it is the first time and American jury has awarded damages under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty to which the United States is a signatory.

Flemming Ralk, 72, was held for 14 months in the Lincoln county jail in Lincolnton, Georgia, awaiting trial on federal fraud charges. Ralk went to trial and was acquitted on all charges. While awaiting trial Ralk repeatedly sought medical treatment for a herniated disk and stomach trouble. he did not receive adequate medical treatment. He was also denied reading material and outdoor exercise. The jail's phone system only allows for collect calls within the United States. Ralk was not allowed to make any phone calls to his family in Denmark nor receive any calls from them.

Ralk filed suit under the ICCPR and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court held that rights under the ICCPR are no greater than those ...

Prisoners at the Mount Olive Correctional Center in West Virginia staged a walkout on Monday morning August 30, 1999 to protest a new visitation policy and problems with the phone system.

More than 200 prisoners gathered in the prison's recreation yard and sat down. Most of them had walked away .from industry jobs. After 90 minutes Warden Howard Painter promised to meet with four prisoner leaders and said he will begin a weekly closed-circuit television address to keep the prison population informed about what the administration is doing.

The protesters complained about restrictive visitation policies enacted after a female visitor smuggled a gun inside the maximum-security prison August 8. They also cited interruptions in telephone service, and demanded that prisoners locked-down in the Quilliams II unit (a "supermax" segregation unit) be given back lost privileges.

Warden Painter agreed to restore privileges to the Quilliams II prisoners, who had been without showers, hot meals, or television since the August 8th gun-smuggling incident.

"I do know that [Painter] made cigarettes and coffee available to [the Quilliams II prisoners]," Corrections Commissioner Paul Kirby told the Charleston Gazette. "We're going to see if we're looking at a communication problem," he added.

"My experience has ...

In the August, 1999, issue of PLN we reported that a class action suit had been filed in federal court in Illinois challenging the extortionate phone rates charged to those who accept collect calls from prisoners.

On March 23, 2000, federal district court judge William Hibbler ordered the suit dismissed on the defendants' motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs in the suit consisted of prisoners phoning people outside prison and free citizens desiring phone contact with prisoners. The defendants are the Illinois Department of Corrections and various Illinois county jails that have entered into exclusive phone service contracts with phone companies. Also being sued are the phone companies that provide phone services to Illinois prisons and jails and charge rates significantly higher than those charged for collect calls by non prisoners. The plaintiffs claimed that the high rates violated numerous provisions of the U.S. and Illinois constitutions, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the federal 1996 federal telecommunications act and various state laws. (See the August, 1999, PLN for the full details on the suit.)

The court held the issues were non justiciable under the "filed rate" and "primary jurisdiction" doctrines. Under 47 U.S.C. § 203(a) phone companies file tariffs with the state ...