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Thread: Jessie Con-Ui Sentenced to LWOP by Federal Jury in 2011 PA Slaying of Federal Prison Guard Eric Williams

  1. #1
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    Jessie Con-Ui Sentenced to LWOP by Federal Jury in 2011 PA Slaying of Federal Prison Guard Eric Williams




    Jessie Con-Ui


    Prison guard killed by inmate in Wayne County


    A corrections officer from Nanticoke was killed by an inmate at a federal prison in Wayne County on Monday night in what officials say was a highly unusual murder targeting a guard, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

    Officials said Eric Williams, 34, was killed by an inmate who used a homemade weapon at the U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan, a high-security prison for men. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 11:30 p.m.

    "This is clearly the darkest day in our institution's short history, and we are in shock over this senseless loss of a colleague and friend," Warden David Ebbert said in a statement.

    Bureau of Prisons spokesman Chris Burke said the prison, which opened in 2005, remained in lockdown and that the FBI is investigating the attack. He deferred comment on potential charges to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.

    Williams was working alone in a unit housing about 130 inmates and was preparing to lock them into their cells for a nightly head-count when he was attacked, said Philip Glover, the northeast regional vice president for the guards' union, the American Federation of Government Employees Council of Prison Locals.

    Williams, who would have been equipped with only a radio, keys and handcuffs, was beaten and stabbed repeatedly with a homemade knife, Glover said.

    When Williams failed to leave the housing unit after the count, another officer grew suspicious and found him, Glover said. It wasn't clear how long it took the other officer to realize Williams was in distress, he said.

    An autopsy conducted Tuesday by Dr. Gary Ross concluded that Williams died from "a combination of blunt head and neck trauma and hemorrhage due to multiple stab wounds and cuts," the Lackawanna County Coroner's Office said in a news release. The manner of death was ruled a homicide.

    Williams became the nation's 25th federal corrections officer to be killed on duty since 1901, Bureau of Prisons records show.

    The son of Donald and Jean Williams, Nanticoke, the fallen correctional officer is also survived by three siblings, Mark, 38, Kyle, 27, and Lauren, 23.

    Williams' family, in an interview at their home Tuesday morning, said three guards and the prison's warden came to the home to deliver the news to them early Monday morning.

    Family members recalled Williams as a sports and outdoors enthusiast who had made a career of serving his community and the law, having previously worked in security and as a police officer.

    "He was proud to wear his uniform," Williams' mother, Jean, 65, said at the family's Walnut Street home. "He was a very cautious person. That's why I can't believe this happened to him. Senseless."

    Family said they were told Williams was attacked about 10 p.m., near the end of his shift, but had not been able to learn a lot of the details. They said he had not said anything recently about any problems with inmates.

    "(The killer) is already in jail. So what's going to happen to him? No justice," said Williams' sister, Lauren.

    Glover said the correctional officers union has long sought to add a second officer to housing units, particularly in high-security prisons where officers supervise about 150 prisoners each. Congress, however, has failed to fund the additional positions, he said.

    "In this case and in most cases, the officers are by themselves," Glover said, adding that many of the prisoners are murderers, rapists and gang members. "These aren't guys that got locked up for tax evasion."

    The union is also seeking to arm the officers with at least pepper spray to give officers under attack a chance to escape, he said.

    Williams' family said they never imagined his life being cut short during his job as a corrections officer - a post he had held since Sept. 11, 2011. While his family knew there were dangers, they thought becoming a prison guard was safer for Williams than being a police officer, along with better financial stability.

    "He was a cop and said, 'I'm making peanuts to put my life on the line,' " Lauren said. "It was more stable."

    Bureau of Prisons data show that serious assaults by inmates on corrections officers are fairly common. According to its data, the bureau, which employs some 38,600 people, experienced 97 serious assaults on staff members in 2009 - the most recent year available - and 93 such assaults in 2008.

    "Unfortunately, corrections is an inherently dangerous field," said Burke, the bureau spokesman. "Staff safety is one of our biggest concerns, if not the biggest."

    But while assaults occur with some regularity, Burke said it is much more rare for federal corrections officers to be killed in the line of duty.

    Bureau of Prisons data show that only 24 corrections officers have been killed in the line of duty since 1901.

    The most recent fatality was corrections officer Jose V. Rivera, who was killed June 20, 2008, at U.S. Penitentiary at Atwater in California. Two inmates chased him until he tripped and fell, then they fatally stabbed him with a homemade knife, according to the bureau.

    The only other federal corrections officer ever killed in Pennsylvania was Robert F. Miller, a senior officer at U.S. Penitentiary at Lewisburg. He was killed Oct. 12, 1987, as he and three other officers were transporting an inmate to a hospital to be treated for self-inflicted injuries.

    Two of the inmate's associates ambushed the group in an attempt to free the inmate, shooting Miller five times and also striking another officer who survived. Officers chased the inmate and his accomplices for 11 miles before capturing them.

    Williams' family is still trying to grasp the fact that he is gone. He recently purchased a cottage at Lily Lake in Conyngham Township, but visited his parents every day at their Nanticoke home for lunch. While there, he would stop by his brother's adjoining taxidermy shop.

    "It's the worst. I can't even grasp it," Mark said. "We just talked about going fishing next week."

    Mark said he just restored a fish Williams had mounted in 1997 and showed it to him two days ago. Williams planned to hang the prize catch in his cottage.

    In addition to hunting and fishing, Williams enjoyed playing in local soccer leagues and was a die-hard fan of the Seattle Seahawks, his family said. They remember him often sharing funny You Tube videos he found online.

    A 1996 graduate of Greater Nanticoke Area High School, Williams earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice at King's College in 2004. He worked in security for Wegmans Food Markets for more than a decade and also served as a police officer in Jefferson Township before becoming a prison guard.

    "I want people to know who he was and that the young men who work for those prisons put their lives on the line every day," Jean said.

    Family members expect to hold a wake Thursday and a funeral Friday but plans are still being finalized.

    http://republicanherald.com/news/pri...unty-1.1450851
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    Admiral CnCP Legend JT's Avatar
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    Hmm...


    Section 1118. Murder by a Federal prisoner

    (a) Offense. - A person who, while confined in a Federal correctional institution under a sentence for a term of life imprisonment, commits the murder of another shall be punished by death or by life imprisonment.

    (b) Definitions. - In this section -

    "Federal correctional institution" means any Federal prison, Federal correctional facility, Federal community program center, or Federal halfway house.

    "murder" means a first degree or second degree murder (as defined in section 1111).

    "term of life imprisonment" means a sentence for the term of natural life, a sentence commuted to natural life, an indeterminate term of a minimum of at least fifteen years and a maximum of life, or an unexecuted sentence of death.


    18 U.S.C. § 1118.
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    Inmate suspected in prison guard's murder identified

    The inmate suspected in the killing of a corrections officer at the U.S. Penitentiary in Canaan has been identified.

    Jesse Con-ui, who is serving time on a cocaine trafficking charge, could face the death penalty in the killing of Officer Eric Williams, 34, of Nanticoke, according to an order signed in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg today by Chief Judge Yvette Kane, who appointed attorneys to represent him.

    Williams was killed by an inmate armed with a crude homemade knife on Feb. 25, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

    Con-ui, 36, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison in a drug trafficking case in Arizona. He was scheduled for release in September, according to a Bureau of Prisons website, which says he is now being held at a high-security prison in Allenwood.

    http://citizensvoice.com/news/inmate...fied-1.1456817
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    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Looked him up on the Arizona Department of Corrections website and he's apparently got a life sentence already for first-degree murder under state jurisdiction.

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    From troubled youth to ruthless thug

    Jessie Con-ui started drinking at 12 and killing at 25.

    Con-ui - the inmate implicated in a fatal attack on a correctional officer at United States Penitentiary at Canaan three weeks ago - lured a gang rival into an execution outside an East Phoenix, Ariz., laundry facility in 2002; acted as the enforcer in a major drug trafficking operation; and, while in jail in 2007 and 2008, aided the gang's distribution of drugs and proceeds from drug sales.

    The execution, law enforcement officials said, afforded Con-ui "solidarity" and "good standing" within the violent New Mexican Mafia gang and added a signature offense to his already unsavory résumé of car thefts, alcoholism and drug addiction. The gang, notorious in the southwest for its ruthless violence, became like a second family for Con-ui, a scrappy Filipino immigrant whose closest relatives appeared to distance themselves from him as he descended into a life of crime.

    Police reports, presentence investigations and other records prepared by state and federal prosecutors include repeated mentions of the now 36-year-old Con-ui's involvement with the New Mexican Mafia. His role as an armed guard in the gang's trade of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine in the early 2000s led to an 11-year federal prison sentence and his eventual transfer to Canaan.

    Con-ui arrived at the prison, in Wayne County, in October 2011 after stops at three other federal penitentiaries, including the U.S. Penitentiary at Victorville, in Adelanto, Calif. - about 358 miles from Phoenix. A former federal prison warden said the frequency of Con-ui's transfers and the distance between Canaan and Phoenix - more than 2,300 miles - indicated his propensity for disobedience transcended his time in the federal prison system.

    "This inmate, I would presume, had some disciplinary issues," the former warden said. "He's doing time in Northeastern Pennsylvania. That tells me he's been a management problem. A part of the discipline is to ship him far away from home."

    Correctional officer Eric Williams, 34, of Nanticoke, died after Con-ui allegedly blindsided and attacked him as he made his rounds for nightly lockdown between 9:45 and 10 p.m. on Feb. 25. The 5-foot-9, 140-pound Con-ui allegedly hurled the taller, bulkier guard down a set of steps and pounced, beating him and repeatedly stabbing him with a shank.

    Con-ui had been scheduled to complete his federal sentence in September and would have immediately been returned to Arizona to begin serving his life term for the 2002 murder - a consideration the former federal prison warden said he might have feared.

    "It could be he was in trouble internally with his gang and didn't want to go home, didn't want to get killed," the former warden said. "To assure himself, he never went back to Arizona, he killed a federal officer. Maybe, he's thinking he doesn't want to be anywhere near his home turf."

    After Williams' death, prison officials swiftly transferred Con-ui to a high-security prison in Allenwood, Union County.

    If convicted, Con-ui could face the death penalty.

    A collision course

    Con-ui's journey began in Angeles City in the Philippines.

    He lived there for 10 years before his mother, Teresita, and stepfather, Gary Sliney, moved him and his family to Rome, N.Y. - a three-hour drive up Interstate 81 from Williams' hometown of Nanticoke.

    Sliney, a member of the U.S. Air Force, was stationed at the since-repurposed Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, according to his Facebook profile.

    He retired in October 1993 after serving in the Gulf War.

    Con-ui's older brother, Jamie, graduated from Rome Free Academy in 1993 and the family moved to Arizona a year later.

    Con-ui, already heavy into alcohol and drugs, continued his education at Sliney's alma mater, Coronado High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., but dropped out after the eighth grade, according to presentence investigations for the 1995 thefts and 2002 murder.

    Con-ui would have been 17 at the time of the move to Arizona - the age of a high school senior. It is unclear from Con-ui's interviews with probation officers and from public records whether he had been left back earlier in his school career or if he had to repeat a grade or two after emigrating to the United States from the Philippines.

    Sliney, Jamie Con-ui and Con-ui's sister, Maria Mask, did not respond to interview requests.

    A 'desperate' thief

    Con-ui's life disintegrated in Arizona.

    He experimented with cocaine, spent $200 to $300 a week on crystal meth and drank as many as three cases of beer a week. He traded the relative calm of high school for membership in a violent street gang, the Eastside Locos, and moved from couch to couch in a cycle of transience that precipitated his string of automobile thefts. His mother and Sliney, the man he had known since childhood as a father figure, separated because of him.

    The thefts, in May and July 1995, propelled Con-ui into the Arizona state prison system, where he became acquainted with the New Mexican Mafia. That initiation, irreversible under the bylaws of the gang, set in motion the succession of crimes and punishments - murder, two rounds of drug trafficking and long sentences in state and federal prison - that led to his alleged confrontation with Williams at Canaan on Feb. 25.

    Con-ui told a Maricopa County, Ariz., probation officer that he sunk into a depression soon after going to prison for the automobile thefts. His "family's lack of support," he said, contributed to his bleak outlook. His mother and stepfather argued over how they thought Con-ui should be raised. Their divorce became final in 2004, according to Arizona court records.

    Probation officer Michael Wimmer, relaying Con-ui's observations from a 1996 interview, wrote that Sliney would get "upset" and blame Teresita for Con-ui's behavior. Sliney felt Teresita was "too lenient" with Con-ui. The lack of discipline - of military precision and obedience that Sliney learned in the service - enabled an already reckless youth to explode into a monster.

    Con-ui told Wimmer he started breaking into and stealing cars in 1995 because he was "desperate" for a place to live. He stole from friends, acquaintances and strangers. He busted into locked vehicles and preyed on people who momentarily left their keys in their ignitions while attending to other business.

    In one such episode, Con-ui stole a purse from the front of Sarah Persinger's home as she unloaded groceries and, returning an hour later with the keys that had been in the purse, took off with her Volkswagen Fox. Con-ui told Wimmer he lived in the car for a week and drove it until it broke down. Con-ui overheated the engine, Persinger told Wimmer, and ruined the alternator. The car, she said, was a total loss.

    Con-ui estimated he stole at least six cars in the three-month stretch in 1995 that led to his first felony charges and first prison sentence as an adult. Investigators documented five of them: three in the first three weeks of May; two more and a parking lot break-in within a seven-day stretch in July.

    Con-ui pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and, with credit for time served after his arrest in the county lockup, spent less than six years in state prison.

    Carnales por vida

    Con-ui emerged from prison on Sept. 19, 2001 a fully engulfed carnal, or brother, of the New Mexican Mafia. Within a year, he graduated from theft to murder, executing a fellow carnal for failing to fulfill his obligations within the organization.

    Con-ui, then 25, ambushed the underperforming carnal, Carlos L. Garcia, outside an East Phoenix laundry facility on Aug. 25, 2002, according to a report prepared ahead of Con-ui's sentencing in 2008. He and two other carnales, Manuel Medrano and the notorious Johnny "The Sinner" Farinas, fired 10 bullets into Garcia's head and upper torso before fleeing on foot, investigators said.

    Garcia's fiancee, who had accompanied him to the facility, identified Con-ui from a police photo lineup. Medrano's roommate told police he and Farinas laughed at a television news report about the killing. Afterward, the roommate said, Farinas went into the backyard and burned his clothes.

    "(Expletive) that punk," Medrano told the roommate, according to police. "We smoked that fool. He ain't nothing but a rat."

    Con-ui remained free for another year before federal prosecutors charged him in the drug trafficking operation.

    He worked at an Osco drug store in the Phoenix area and married Melissa Melendez in Las Vegas in March 2003.

    They had two daughters and divorced quickly in 2005, after investigators in Phoenix charged him in the 2002 murder and after a federal judge ordered him to serve 11 years for his role in the drug trafficking operation.

    Con-ui pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced in June 2008 to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

    'Killing machines'

    Con-ui's gang, the New Mexican Mafia, is considered the most lethal organized crime syndicate the state of Arizona has ever known.

    They kill, and kill and kill to get their way.

    Formed by prison inmates in Arizona in the mid-1980s, the gang has led a reign of terror for decades while pushing methamphetamine, cocaine and others drugs throughout the southwest and inside its prisons.

    To them, "killing is currency," police in Arizona often say.

    Farinas remains a sergeant in the gang that demands loyalty until death. Jailed in Arizona state prison on murder and gang-related charges until at least 2049, the 42-year-old appears unrepentant.

    "You mess up, you're going to get hit in the head. Plain and simple," Farinas told History Channel for its "Gangland" series that aired in September 2010. "If I have to hit you, whack you, pop you, I'm going to do it."

    Farinas, who spends his days isolated in solitary confinement for being an avowed gang member, sat down for an on-camera jailhouse interview for the show. Throughout the hourlong segment on the New Mexican Mafia, he describes how the gang operates and details the consequences for not playing on its terms.

    "We have our own little rules and our little guidelines we go by. As long as you don't break those rules, you're gonna be alright. If you do, we're gonna come in and step in," Farinas said.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Fouratt, who led a successful prosecution against many New Mexican Mafia members in 2005, said Fairnas was among the gang's most vicious members.

    "He is viewed by the Phoenix Police Department as among the most capable and ruthless killers to have ever worn the tattoo," Fouratt told the show's producers.

    Farines wears the telltale tattoo of a New Mexican Mafia on his upper chest - a sunburst, with two Ms and a skull, topped with the word, Carnalisimo.

    "Carnalismo, means my brotherhood," Farinas said. "That's my patch. That's something I earned."

    Fouratt declined to comment about the group when reached by telephone last week at his New Mexico office, only saying he was very familiar with Con-ui. He noted it would be inappropriate to speak about the group or Con-ui because his colleagues in the U.S. Department of Justice are investigating Williams' murder at United States Penitentiary at Canaan.

    As of 2005, the New Mexican Mafia was "responsible for more than 100 murders and literally uncountable attempted murders and violent assaults," Fourtatt said during a speech at the time.

    One of the newest gangs in the state, the New Mexican Mafia quickly became the most powerful. The gang was started in the early 1980s by members of the original Mexican Mafia after leaders were placed in solitary confinement for gang activity, experts told the History Channel. A decade later, Arizona adopted the same lockdown policy for every incarcerated gang member.

    That placed a New Mexican Mafia bounty on the head of the then-head of the state prison system, Terry Stewart, in retaliation for the policy that significantly harmed the gang's ability to operate in prison.

    Stewart detailed the murder plot in the History Channel report, saying he learned gang members were trailing him for weeks. One day, they followed him into his favorite restaurant ready to carry out the killing, but, by happenstance, two uniformed Phoenix police officers walked in and sat next to him.

    "If they hadn't chose to walk in at that point, I would have been a victim," Stewart said.

    The authorities who pursued gang members and the witnesses who planned to testify against them were high on the kill list as well. During the prosecution of 13 of the gang's leaders last decade, a detective was targeted for death, prosecutors started carrying guns and a judge demanded bodyguards and bulletproof glass for her court. Eight government witnesses were executed along the way. A prosecution motion indicated the gang was responsible "for a trail of dead bodies of murdered potential witnesses."

    "These guys are killing machines," a law enforcement officer targeted for death by the group once told The Arizona Republic newspaper.

    The Arizona Department of Public Safety, a version of the state police in Pennsylvania, list the New Mexican Mafia as an active gang on its website and details some of its history.

    However, a spokesman for the department declined to speak about its current role.

    "We never comment on specific gangs because it would give them undue publicity for their criminal activity," spokesman Bart Graves said in an email.

    The website of Arizona Department of Corrections lists the New Mexican Mafia as one of nine active prison gangs whose members are placed in permanent lockdown. Following a history of the gang, the site includes a copy of the bylaws seized from an inmate years ago.

    A part of the bylaws read: "You cannot become a carnal (brother) and then choose not to associate or be a part of the Mexican Mafia. This will not be permitted. There are no revolving doors to walk in or walk out whenever we please.

    This is known as the "blood in, blood out" oath.

    Farinas still pledges allegiance to the gang despite rumblings he has been "greenlighted" for murder for discussing gang business - about another gang member - in a prison phone call that was wiretapped by authorities.

    "Sinner snitched. Yea, in a way, he did snitch. It's was a dry snitch," another New Mexican Mafia gang member told the History Channel, noting that a dry snitch is "snitching by accident."

    Asked about his gang's purported turn against him, Farinas said: "My mindset from the gate is for my people and I still love my people. I will always be here for my people."

    Sgt. D. Gomez, intelligence supervisor for Maricopa County's Fourth Avenue Jail, said the gang remains very active.

    "It's one of the most dangerous prison gangs we have in Arizona. The Mexican Mafia is the most active here," Gomez noted.

    Those identified as a member of the gang are placed in maximum-security isolation for 23 hours a day, he said.

    "They have a propensity to try to jeopardize the security of the jail. In Arizona, they are considered a security threat because they are a prison gang. They are pretty much placed in a lockdown setting."

    http://citizensvoice.com/news/from-t...thug-1.1459632
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    Accused guard killer moved to Colorado

    He's now among the worst of the worst.

    Jessie Con-ui, the suspect in the fatal Feb. 25 attack on a correctional officer at the United States Penitentiary at Canaan, has been moved to ADX Florence, the supermaximum security prison in Colorado known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies."

    A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons would not disclose a reason for the transfer, which occurred Friday.

    ADX Florence houses more than 400 of the most ruthless criminals in federal custody, according to prison records, including Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols and Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

    Con-ui, 36, had been locked away at the United States Penitentiary at Allenwood, a high-security facility near Williamsport, since he allegedly ambushed and killed correctional officer Eric Williams at Canaan in Wayne County.

    A retired federal prison warden called the transfer "a little unusual." An inmate like Con-ui, "would normally go out to Florence after sentencing," the warden, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Tuesday. "Why they sent this guy there, I find that odd."

    Inmates at ADX Florence, considered the "most secure prison in the world," are isolated from each other and spend 23 hours a day locked in their cells, the retired warden said. They are escorted by a minimum of three officers for their five hours of private recreation per week. The facility has the most advanced interior and exterior security mechanisms of the 119 facilities in the federal prison system and is staffed by the best trained staff in the bureau, he said.

    The retired warden cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who spent time at ADX Florence before his execution in 2001, as the prototypical inmate at the facility.

    "Someone who is extremely dangerous or extremely violent, or an inmate who has a high notoriety-type offense," the retired warden said.

    A federal judge identified Con-ui, a gang member and convicted murderer from Arizona, as the suspect within two weeks of Williams' death.

    Con-ui was scheduled to complete his 11-year federal drug trafficking sentence in September and would have immediately been returned to Arizona to serve 25 years to life for killing a gang rival.

    After the attack on Williams, prison officials swiftly transferred Con-ui, first to Allenwood and then ADX Florence. If convicted, Con-ui could face the death penalty.

    Con-ui's court-appointed attorneys, James A. Swetz and the renowned death-penalty expert Mark Fleming, did not return telephone messages Tuesday. Con-ui's transfer to ADX Florence, 1,780 miles from Canaan, could be a sign the authorities are not prepared to charge him for some time, the retired warden said.

    Another potential reason, he said, could have been the "emotional involvement" of having him jailed at Allenwood, only about 110 miles from Canaan.

    "Allenwood is not very far away from Canaan and you're going to have connections among the staff," he said.

    The move, however, could have been intended all along and cell space just opened up at the supermaximum facility, federal prison consultant Cheri Nolan said.

    "You have to be pretty special to earn a ticket there," Nolan, a deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, said. "Either you're notorious or considered especially dangerous."

    Nolan toured ADX Florence, the only supermaximum security facility of the 119 federal prisons, in 2004, while a member of the advisory board for the National Institute of Corrections, a federal agency that supports correctional programs.

    "I've never seen anything like it as far as the technology and physical set up. Once you're inside you really can't tell where you are - what's north, south, east or west. The way it's designed, it's an interesting kind of setup," Nolan said. "Because of the high value of targets they have there - on a world scale, whether it be a drug cartel or terrorists - they are as concerned with someone trying to get in to break someone out as much as they are about inmates trying to escape. The protection around the prison is pretty remarkable."

    Jessie Con-ui, the suspect in the murder of a federal correctional officer from Nanticoke, was transferred Friday to the highest security prison in the federal system, ADX Florence in Colorado. The supermaximum facility is the sixth federal prison Con-ui has been housed in since he entered the system in September 2008.

    Sept. 2, 2008: Con-ui placed in the U.S. Penitentiary at Victorville in Adelanto, Calif.

    Oct. 26, 2010: Transferred to the U.S. Penitentiary at Pollock in Louisiana.

    March 28, 2011: Moved to the U.S. Penitentiary at Coleman in Florida.

    Oct 3., 2011: Entered the Canaan prison in Wayne County, Pa.

    Feb. 26, 2013: Following the murder of correctional officer Eric Williams, Con-ui is transferred to U.S. Penitentiary at Allenwood, Union County.

    April 26, 2013: Con-ui transferred to ADX Florence in Colorado, the federal system's highest security prison.

    http://citizensvoice.com/news/accuse...rado-1.1482083
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    Death penalty lawyers named in case of slain prison guard

    A judge on Thursday appointed attorneys for “death penalty proceedings” in the case of a federal inmate under investigation in the killing of corrections officer Eric Williams of Nanticoke at a prison in Wayne County.

    The filing by U.S. District Chief Judge Yvette Kane signaled the direction of the prosecution of Jessie Con-Ui, even though he has not been charged.

    Kane indicated the investigation “has the potential to become a capital case” when on March 11 she appointed attorneys James Swetz and Mark Fleming to represent Con-Ui, who was unable to pay for legal counsel.

    A docket entry in the case listed the appointment of Swetz “in Death Penalty Proceedings.” Documents for Swetz and Fleming also noted they were appointed for “death penalty proceedings.” The docket also listed a number of sealed documents not available for public viewing.

    A voice-mail message for Swetz, of Stroudsburg, was not returned. A message left for Fleming, of San Diego, Calif. was not returned.

    The 36-year-old inmate from Arizona is under investigation in the stabbing death of Williams on Feb. 25 at the U.S. Penitentiary-Canaan. Williams died from multiple stab wounds inflicted by an inmate wielding a homemade knife, according to federal authorities.

    Con-Ui was serving a sentence at the prison in Canaan for a 2005 conviction on drug charges. He was indicted along with six other men in June 2003 in Arizona for participating in a drug ring connected to the New Mexican Mafia gang. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and a firearms charge and received a sentence of 11 years and three months.

    Con-Ui was to be released from federal custody on Sept. 17 , but still faced a life sentence in Arizona for a first-degree murder conviction. He has since been moved to the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., whose inmates include Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and Terry Nichols, who helped carry out the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

    http://golackawanna.com/news/local-n...n-prison-guard
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    Inmate indicted on murder charge in February stabbing death of guard at NE Pa. federal prison

    A federal prison inmate has been indicted in the stabbing death of a guard at a northeastern Pennsylvania prison earlier this year, authorities said.

    Prosecutors say a federal grand jury in Scranton returned an indictment Tuesday charging 36-year-old Jessie Con-Ui with first-degree murder and first-degree murder of a U.S. corrections officer in the Feb. 25 slaying of Eric Williams, prosecutors said.

    The indictment alleges that Con-Ui struck Williams repeatedly with a sharpened weapon in a premeditated attack at the Canaan Federal Correction Complex in Waymart and accuses him of "repeatedly kicking, stomping and slamming him about the head, face and torso."

    The defendant also is charged with possession of contraband in the form of the "sharpened weapon commonly known as a 'shiv' or 'shank.'"

    Con-Ui was scheduled to complete a drug-trafficking sentence in September and would then have been returned to Arizona to serve a life term for a 2002 murder. Officials say he could face the death penalty or a federal life sentence if convicted in the guard's murder.

    Since the slaying, Con-Ui has been moved to the federal Supermax prison in Colorado. An attorney appointed to represent him did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...n-Guard-Killed
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    Inmate pleads not guilty to killing Nanticoke guard

    Arizona killer Jessie Con-ui pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges he attacked and killed Nanticoke correctional officer Eric Williams in February at the U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan in Wayne County.

    Con-ui, charged with first-degree murder and the first-degree murder of a federal correctional officer, could face the death penalty. U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Blewitt set his trial for Sept. 16 at the federal courthouse in Wilkes-Barre.

    Con-ui, 36, appeared at his arraignment via video conference call from the federal supermaximum security prison in Florence, Colo. A court-appointed death penalty attorney, Mark Fleming, stood by his side. Another court-appointed attorney, James Swetz, appeared in the courtroom.

    Swetz would not say whether Con-ui would go to trial or attempt to negotiate a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty. Con-ui, a reputed member of the New Mexican Mafia prison gang, must still serve 25 years to life in Arizona prison for a 2002 gang killing in Phoenix.

    "We are not going to have any comment on today's proceeding," Swetz said, as he left court.

    An indictment charging Con-ui gave little detail about the alleged attack. Williams' colleagues told The Citizens' Voice in March that Con-ui ambushed Williams during nightly lock down, pushing him down a flight of stairs and stabbing him with a makeshift knife.

    U.S. Attorney Peter Smith watched the arraignment from the jury box, alongside Williams' family. Afterward, he declined comment on the case.

    http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/inm...uard-1.1521229
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  10. #10
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Free to kill: A ruthless inmate, a lack of discipline, an avoidable death

    By Michael R. Sisak and Bob Kalinowski
    The Citizens' Voice

    A gang assassin turned rebellious inmate, Jessie Con-ui often acted as if the rules didn't apply to him. The people in charge of discipline at the United States Penitentiary at Canaan made sure the punishment for breaking the rules didn't apply to him, either.

    Con-ui, known on the streets of the Southwest as "Bling" and "Toker" and within the federal prison system as Inmate No. 04287-748, committed significant rules violations at Canaan twice in the year before prosecutors said he attacked and killed Correctional Officer Eric Williams on Feb. 25.

    After each infraction, in March and September 2012, discipline hearing officers ordered Con-ui to serve six months in a special-housing unit, a prison within the prison where he was to be confined to his cell for 23 hours a day. Both times, however, the hearing officer immediately reversed that ruling and said the notoriously bellicose Con-ui could remain in general population so long as he behaved.

    Had the sanctions stood, Con-ui's term in special housing would have run through at least March 20 - three weeks after Williams died.

    Instead, for reasons the warden, the hearing officers and the federal Bureau of Prisons refused to discuss with The Citizens' Voice, Con-ui stayed in the same housing unit, C-Range, where he had lived since arriving at Canaan in October 2011.

    There, with little supervision or restraint, the 5-foot-9, 140-pound Filipino immigrant seethed about a shakedown of his cell supposedly ordered by Williams the day before the murder. There, according to prosecutors, he manufactured or obtained a shank, charged at Williams and knocked him down the staircase connecting the unit's upper and lower levels, stabbed the officer 129 times and fractured his skull in multiple places.

    Con-ui confessed less than 48 hours later, according to a psychological report obtained by The Citizens' Voice.

    Con-ui, 36, said he felt "disrespect" and "overreacted" after Williams, 34, ordered two officers to shake down his cell, according to the report.

    Williams' mother, Jean, sighed earlier this month as she learned of the leniency that allowed Con-ui to remain in general population.

    A room in the family's Nanticoke home is filled with larger-than-life portraits of a smiling Williams and the mementos of his life and death: memorial medallions and mugs marked "end of watch," engraved clocks and shot glasses, a blanket signed by his Canaan brethren and a framed American flag.

    "Shouldn't have happened, right?" she said.

    The Citizens' Voice has reported extensively over the last 10 months on the policies, cutbacks and lapses that left Williams susceptible to attack. They include the assignment of one officer to a unit of 100 or more inmates, the bureau's reluctance to arm officers with pepper spray and the leniency that allowed Con-ui to remain at large within the greater Canaan community.

    "The so-called system failed, somehow," Williams' father, Don Williams, said.

    "There's too many wrongs," Jean Williams said.

    The Voice obtained Con-ui's disciplinary record, his transfer report and other closely guarded Bureau of Prisons documents; interviewed officers and officials with direct knowledge of the attack and of the discipline process at Canaan; and consulted former federal prison wardens on disciplinary procedures within the system and had them review Con-ui's record and other documents.

    The Voice found a stark shift in the way Con-ui was disciplined in the federal system, from a near zero-tolerance approach for even minor offenses when he arrived in September 2008 at the United States Penitentiary at Victorville, Calif. to the leniency and forgiveness at Canaan that permitted him to remain in the general population despite multiple serious offenses.

    That change in disciplinary philosophy - at least in the case of the violent Con-ui, who gunned down a gang rival outside a Phoenix, Ariz., laundry facility in 2002 and conspired in a cocaine-trafficking ring that led to federal charges and an 11-year sentence - came as political leaders and civil liberties groups pressured the Bureau of Prisons to reduce the number of inmates in special housing and solitary confinement.

    The director of the Bureau of Prisons, Charles E. Samuels Jr., told a House subcommittee in September 2013 that the bureau was "in the midst of making significant changes" to its special-housing unit policies and procedures, but did not specify what they were.

    At the hearing - held nearly a year to the day after a discipline hearing officer at Canaan reversed Con-ui's second special-housing term - Samuels said the bureau had already decreased the number of inmates in special housing in the last year by 25 percent "primarily by focusing on alternative management strategies and alternative sanctions for inmates."

    Samuels expanded on his comments in November, telling a Senate subcommittee the bureau reduced the number of inmates in restrictive housing to about 9,300 from 13,500 in June 2012, in part by stressing to wardens "that we only use it when absolutely necessary."

    At the same time, at a federal prison complex in Florida, the bureau started putting a price on its special-housing goals, tying the population reduction to the performance reviews used to determine bonuses for wardens and other high-ranking officials. The bureau would not say whether those performance goals applied to wardens at other facilities, including Canaan.

    A Bureau of Prisons spokesman declined to discuss the "significant changes" Samuels mentioned, and would not address how the bureau achieved the 25 percent reduction or what impact, if any, a system monitoring "average disciplinary sanction time" across the federal prison system had on the autonomy of discipline hearing officers to impose sanctions.

    "We won't be addressing these questions at this time," the spokesman, Chris Burke, said on Dec. 18.

    The Bureau of Prisons did not respond to questions about the Con-ui case or the inclusion of special-housing reductions on the performance reviews at the Federal Correctional Complex at Coleman, Fla.

    The warden at Canaan, David Ebbert, declined an interview request.

    "Although we appreciate your interest in the Bureau of Prisons, and specifically, USP Canaan, Warden Ebbert has declined your interview request, at this time," Paul Gibson, acting executive assistant at Canaan, said in an email on Dec. 19.

    Darrell Palmer, the president of the union at Canaan, AFGE Local 3003, warned against publishing this story, saying it would give "ammunition" to Con-ui's attorneys and harm the chances of a conviction and a death sentence.

    "Right now, there's a lot of sensitive information out there that can hurt this," Palmer said Dec. 13.

    Con-ui's court-appointed attorneys, James Swetz, of Stroudsburg, and Mark Fleming, of San Diego, Calif., did not return multiple telephone calls.

    U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, who attended Williams' wake and met with his family in the months after, called the suspension of disciplinary sanctions for Con-ui "disconcerting" and called on the Bureau of Prisons to answer for the hearing officers' decisions.

    "If Jessie Con-ui should have been in solitary confinement at the time, that's a legitimate question, and whether Eric Williams and other correctional officers were made fully aware of Con-ui's prison record and the special danger that he presented," said Cartwright, D-Moosic. "These are legitimate questions that you're raising. I want to know the answers."

    Red flags, little action


    Upon entering the federal prison system, Con-ui maintained the street-tough persona and the disregard for authority he developed as an enforcer for the New Mexican Mafia. Inside the walls of a penitentiary, he remained a grave threat.

    He attacked fellow inmates, used drugs and/or alcohol, trespassed in off-limits areas, engaged in disruptive behavior and threatened bodily harm to a correctional officer, all before prosecutors said he killed Williams.

    Asked why he attacked the inmates at a federal penitentiary in Pollock, La., in November 2010, Con-ui told a discipline hearing officer, "It was one of those days," according to his disciplinary record.

    All told, Con-ui violated the Bureau of Prisons' code of conduct 11 times in the 4˝ years he lived in federal custody before the attack on Williams. Three of the violations were in the greatest severity level, 100. Three were in the second highest severity level, 200.

    For the first nine infractions, committed at either Victorville or Pollock, Con-ui spent a combined 508 days confined to restricted housing, or 45.1 percent of his first 1,126 days in federal custody prior to a disciplinary transfer to Canaan in October 2011.

    Rated a high-security institution, one rung below super-maximum, the facility in Wayne County houses more than 1,400 inmates, including some of the world's most vile violent and high-profile offenders. Among them: Somali pirate Mohammad Shibin, al-Qaida conspirator Abdul Kadir and Medellin drug trafficker Juan Matta-Ballesteros.

    Con-ui stayed at Canaan for 511 days. He committed two major infractions, for using another inmate's telephone account to make more than two-dozen calls in March 2012 and for using drugs and/or alcohol in September 2012. Because the discipline hearing officers excused him from the special housing sanctions, he spent zero days in segregation, known to inmates as "the hole."

    "I don't have a good reason for why the hearing officers in both those cases would make the decisions they did," said Allen Turner, a former federal prison warden who is the associate director of the Center for Justice Leadership and Management at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "On the surface of the inmate's background - he's failed at two penitentiaries, he's involved in drugs or alcohol, he's been involved in a series of phone abuses, he's a New Mexican Mafia guy - that would raise a lot of red flags."

    Another former federal prison warden who reviewed Con-ui's disciplinary record at The Voice's request said the repeated suspensions of punishment defied the logic of the inmate discipline system.

    "I don't get it," said the former warden, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflict with his current employer. "Does that jump out at me? Yeah. And then to do it again? Why would they cut him such a big break and then do it again?"

    A correctional officer at Canaan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from staff and colleagues, said the most serious, 100-level offenses, "would definitely" send an inmate to the special-housing unit, but not always for the full length of the sanction due to overcrowding.

    At Canaan, the officer said, the special-housing unit "is so filled up with guys who commit violent acts. Say they were sanctioned to 180 days, they might let them off early after say 100 days. You might run out of room. There's so many violent acts happening all the time. The (segregation unit) gets so filled up, you have to cut guys' sentences short."

    Palmer, the union president, said the special-housing unit at Canaan is often at or near capacity, forcing the discipline hearing officers to carefully weigh the significance of each violation - known within the prison community as a "shot" - and whether it warrants taking up a slot in segregation.

    "It's population control is what it boils down to," Palmer said. "If you have 150 beds in a housing unit, you've got to use your head. Something like the phone abuse shot, something like that, do you send him to seg for that, or do you take away other things and leave him on the compound? You make decisions and you live with them."

    Con-ui's first "shot" at Canaan came on March 30, 2012, when officials charged him with using the telephone account of another inmate and making 27 calls to the same number, an abuse of his phone privileges and a disruption of the prison's ability to monitor inmate conversations.

    Turner said the number of calls and the secretive nature of Con-ui's conduct indicated "he's still involved in some sort of gang activity."

    Con-ui admitted to the phone abuse scheme and, at an April 26, 2012, hearing, discipline hearing officer Marc Renda ordered him to spend 180 days in segregation. Immediately after, however, Renda suspended that part of the sentence citing the bureau's 55-page memorandum on discipline, which permits a hearing officer to "suspend one or more sanctions."

    Renda, 43, did not answer the door when a reporter visited his home on Dec. 12. A telephone number listed for him was not in service.

    In Con-ui's phone abuse case, Renda issued additional sanctions, but only enforced some: the loss of 27 days of "good-conduct time" to demonstrate the "seriousness" of the act, the loss of recreation privileges for two months, commissary privileges for a year and use of the telephone - considered by inmates a vital link to the outside world - for 18 months.

    A well-behaving inmate can earn up to 54 days of "good conduct time" per year. Those days, barring a loss of some or all due to sanctions, are subtracted from an inmate's sentence, accelerating his or her release.

    Renda banned Con-ui from having visitors, another privilege considered vital by inmates, or using email for 18 months and fined him $200, all "to deter further behavior." Renda, however, suspended those punishments for 180 days as well, so long as Con-ui behaved himself.

    He lasted 129 days.

    On Sept. 2, 2012, Canaan officials charged Con-ui with using drugs or alcohol, a serious, 100-level discipline violation because of the incendiary effect foreign substances have had on inmates, like the suspects in the murder of Correctional Officer Jose Rivera in Atwater, Calif., in 2008.

    "Using drugs or alcohol is considered one of the most egregious offenses in federal prisons," said the former warden who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Where you find hooch, there is surely violence to follow."

    The disciplinary report did not indicate whether corrections officers found drugs or alcohol on Con-ui's body or in a search of his cell, or whether he failed a urine test.

    A discipline hearing officer, Kylie Bigart, found Con-ui committed the violation and, at a Sept. 20, 2012 hearing, ordered him to spend 180 days in segregation.

    Like Renda, Bigart suspended that part of the sentence for 180 days "pending clear institution conduct," even though Con-ui had violated that provision of his previous suspended sanction.

    Bigart, a case manager who occasionally filled in as a hearing officer, enforced other, less severe penalties. She stripped Con-ui of 41 days of good conduct time, barred him from the commissary for a year, from having visitors for six months and from using email for a month.

    Con-ui's previous violation for using drugs and/or alcohol, at Victorville in April 2010, cost him 15 days in confinement and eight months of visiting privileges.

    Bigart, 35, refused to discuss the case when a reporter visited her home on Dec. 12, saying only, "I did my job."

    According to the bureau's discipline memorandum, though, she could have done much more by imposing, "increased sanctions for repeated, frequent offenses." The former wardens who reviewed Con-ui's disciplinary record said she should have done more.

    Con-ui's second violation, only five months after his first discipline hearing at Canaan, could have triggered the reversal of his previously suspended sanctions and an automatic stay in special housing.

    According to the bureau's guidelines, an inmate committing an offense in the greatest severity level, like using drugs or alcohol, within 24 months of a prior offense could face up to 18 months in disciplinary segregation.

    Con-ui, who committed a second offense five months after the first, didn't spend a day in disciplinary segregation.

    "If the inmate was a danger to staff, then he should have been put away," said Turner, who served as warden at several federal prisons including the former super-maximum penitentiary at Marion, Ill. "That's a management problem. That's the warden and his staff not paying attention as far as what's going on with what the discipline hearing officers are doing."

    158 days after the hearing and the second suspended punishment, Eric Williams was dead.

    The price of pressure

    The leniency that allowed Con-ui to stay in the general population at Canaan after he was sent to segregation for lesser offenses at other institutions, came at a time of weakening support for special housing and solitary confinement from political leaders and the bureau's leadership.

    Six weeks after he entered Victorville, Con-ui spent 17 days in segregated housing for his first two violations of federal prison rules - for refusing to obey an order and acting insolent toward a staff member in October 2008.

    Sending an inmate to segregation for those relatively minor, 300-level offenses at Canaan in 2013, "is unheard of, unless the guy did something that's crazy," the officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.

    Con-ui entered the federal prison system in September 2008, three months after the murder of Correctional Officer Jose Rivera exposed deep flaws in the discipline system at his penitentiary in Atwater, Calif.

    A Bureau of Prisons investigation into Rivera's death found the special housing unit at the prison was "always full" and that many inmates sent to segregation for rules violations either remained in general population or were released back to general population early.

    The discipline hearing officer at Atwater told investigators a "higher than normal" number of incident reports for assault were being thrown out because staff members were missing deadlines or misplacing paperwork.

    The hearing officer "felt the lack of enforcement of the disciplinary process has led inmates to believe they will not be held accountable for their actions," a report on the investigation said. "This leads to a dangerous environment for staff and inmates."

    By the time Con-ui moved to Canaan, three years later, the bureau faced mounting social and political pressure to reduce or abolish its use of special housing segregation and solitary confinement.

    Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., convened a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing in June 2012 titled "Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety Consequences." There, as senators questioned the effects of confinement on mental health and inmate violence, Samuels, the Bureau of Prisons director, defended the use of segregation as a tool to maintain safety by separating out inmates who engage in "willful misconduct."

    "If you have individuals who have the propensity to harm others and in many cases who have killed other individuals, these are individuals who have proven that they're going to require a restrictive form of confinement until it's proven otherwise," Samuels said.

    Samuels, answering a subsequent question, conceded the bureau could consider alternatives to segregation to cut costs. By one estimate, keeping an inmate in segregation costs three times more than in the general population, because of the extra officers and other staff required to keep inmates there under strict supervision.

    In February, the bureau agreed to pay the nonprofit consultant CNA Analysis and Solutions $498,211 to study its use of segregation and solitary confinement. Durbin, who pushed for the study at the June 2012 hearing and discussed it in subsequent conversations with Samuels, issued a statement calling the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons "a human rights issue we can't ignore."

    Durbin's press secretary, Max Gleischman, did not return telephone and email messages left Dec. 17.

    The Bureau of Prisons added a financial incentive to compel officials at the largest correctional complex in the federal prison system, in Coleman, Fla., into a vast reduction of the special-housing population.

    The bureau incorporated the reduction into the performance measures used to determine the bonuses for two senior officials at Coleman for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2012, according to copies of the performance reviews: Tamyra Jarvis, the warden of the complex, and Charles Lockett, the warden of one of its two penitentiaries. The goal also appeared on a performance work plan for Lawrence Howard, a correctional officer supervisor at Coleman. His yearlong evaluation period began April 1.

    In six months, the total number of inmates in restricted housing at the complex fell to 443 from 836, a drop of 47 percent, according to a mid-year review of the performance measures in March. The reduction led to the closure of the special housing unit at the low-security prison on the campus, eliminated the need to transfer inmates to the special housing units at other institutions and cut overtime expenses by more than $511,000.

    The performance measure, part of a list of Justice Department strategic goals and Bureau of Prisons goals on everything from accountability to cost-control, was one of dozens tied to the bonuses paid to top-level administrators at the Coleman complex.

    Wardens who meet all performance qualifications receive a bonus equal to 10 percent of his or her salary. Ebbert, for example, earns $154,301 per year as warden at Canaan, according to GovernmentSalaryData.com. Jarvis and Lockett at Coleman earn $155,969 and $150,131, respectively.

    In 2010, wardens across the system received a total of $412,500 in bonus money and the six regional directors received a total of $109,900. The director of the Bureau at the time, Harley G. Lappin, alone received a $22,000 bonus, according to documents obtained by The Voice.

    The bureau would not say whether its goal to reduce the special-housing population translated into performance incentives at Canaan and other facilities.

    Palmer, the union president, said senior officials at Canaan receive bonuses for "overall operational savings," not "reducing population in the special housing unit."

    "This warden doesn't mess around," Palmer said. "If management feels someone shouldn't be on the compound or if this is something where a guy needs to go to seg or needs to be transferred, they do it."

    The Citizens' Voice filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act on Nov. 27 for the performance work plans and executive pay and performance appraisals for the wardens, discipline hearing officers and other staff at Canaan for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

    The Voice also requested base pay, bonuses and other compensation awarded to all wardens, regional directors, chiefs and deputy chiefs and discipline hearing officers, as well as the executive staff, including the director of the Bureau of Prisons, for 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

    The bureau has yet to respond.

    Female employees at Coleman said the bureau's emphasis on reducing the flow of inmates to special housing has limited their ability to fight the perpetual sexual harassment they endured from inmates left in general population - unpunished and undeterred despite their repeated complaints.

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April certified a group of at least 363 female employees at Coleman for a class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Prisons. The women contend officials at the prison complex limited the number of incident reports they could file, instructed one woman to "stop writing so many incident reports about sexual acts," threw away incident reports about sexual conduct by inmates and coerced women into writing incident reports for lesser offenses.

    'Shouldn't have happened, right?'

    Officers at Canaan said Con-ui blindsided and overpowered Williams as he patrolled the bi-level C-Range at lockdown between 9:45 and 10 p.m. Feb. 25. Con-ui, the officers say, hurled Williams down a concrete staircase and pounced, stabbing him repeatedly with a makeshift blade.

    The attack came so suddenly and with such force, Williams never had a chance to call for help or trigger the body alarm on his hand-held radio.

    "Before he could even react, the inmate was on him," one officer said.

    As Williams lay at the foot of the stairwell, battered, bloodied and dying, the inmates of C-Range stood idle. Each cell at Canaan has a duress alarm for inmates to alert the prison's control center of an emergency, but none of them sounded it during or after the attack.

    "A hundred and some men stood there and did absolutely nothing to interfere and nothing to help," said Williams' father, Don. "These are the kind of men that you're talking about. Nobody did anything."

    No one outside the thick concrete walls of C-Range knew anything had happened. No one thought to look for Williams until an officer noticed he had not returned from the housing unit at the end of his shift. By then, with all that had been done to Williams, it was too late.

    "It's kind of a no-brainer that we had a closed-casket funeral, that's what this guy did," said Don Williams. "This was not just somebody who walked up and shot him or something. He did some damage."

    Don Williams and his wife, Jean, awoke to a knock on the door from Ebbert, Palmer and the prison's human resource officer, Russ Reuthe around 1:30 a.m., nearly four hours after the attack.

    Don wondered if his son was hurt. Williams' sister, Lauren, thought maybe he had been in a car accident. That he had been killed, Jean said, "never crossed my mind until they came out and said it."

    Once the Williamses knew what happened, the early morning of Feb. 26 became a blur of shock and sorrow. Don remembered feeling like his "brain shut off." Jean said she acted "like a robot," focusing on peripheral tasks like making sure everyone had shirts to wear to the funeral. The reality of their son's death, they said, simply didn't sink in.

    "Anything they said after 'passed away,' I don't have a clue," Don said.

    Canaan went on an indefinite lockdown within hours of the attack. Officers identified Con-ui as the suspect and placed his hands and feet in restraints to prevent further violence. By 3 a.m. on Feb. 26 he had been cleared for transfer to the U.S. Penitentiary at Allenwood, south of Williamsport. He arrived at the health services unit there at 5:20 a.m., still in restraints.

    The next day, Con-ui submitted to a mental-health evaluation and told Allenwood staff psychologist John R. Mitchell he killed Williams over "disrespect."

    Con-ui said he had "swallowed a lot" from Williams and could no longer tolerate it, according to a report on the evaluation, conducted ahead of a transfer to the super-maximum security penitentiary in Florence, Colo.

    Before the attack, Con-ui had been scheduled to leave federal prison for Arizona in September to start serving his life term for the 2002 murder. Unlike in the federal system, where general population inmates are free to roam about their cell blocks, Con-ui would have been kept in maximum-security isolation for 23 hours a day because of his gang affiliation.

    The day before the killing, Con-ui said, Williams ordered two officers to shakedown his cell for contraband.

    The officers "tore my house apart," Con-ui said, according to the report. "Everything was on the floor, food on the floor, my things everywhere."

    Con-ui said he realized after killing Williams that he had "overreacted."

    Con-ui did not exhibit signs of mental illness nor did he object to the transfer to Florence, nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," despite 23-hour confinement, frequent cell searches, increased supervision and strict limitations on personal property.

    "I just want to do my time here. It's just about doing time," Con-ui told Mitchell, according to the evaluation report.

    Turner, the former warden who teaches at George Mason University, said Con-ui's record as a gang killer and the most egregious of his misconduct violations - threatening an officer and assaulting inmates - made him a prime candidate for Florence long before Williams' death.

    "Why did it take the death of an officer to get to that point?" Turner said.

    If Con-ui treated Williams with hostility or if he lashed out after the shakedown, Canaan officials should have moved him to special housing, at least temporarily, to put distance between them, Turner said.

    "(Con-ui) would have been vocal about it," Turner said. "He would have been raising hell because his cell was torn up. That would have been a clue that everybody ought to be on their toes and not leave Eric Williams in there to get blindsided."

    Williams' parents have been grasping for answers ever since his death. They pick up scraps of information from meetings with the FBI and federal prosecutors and from conversations with Williams' colleagues and union officials. They try to separate fact from innuendo and they remind themselves not to ask or repeat too much, for fear of spreading misinformation or jeopardizing the trial.

    "We ask them, but don't," said Don.

    "We're afraid what the answers are," said Jean. "The trial is going to bring it all out. The trial is going to be hard."

    The Williamses knew nothing of Con-ui's disciplinary record or of the leniency that allowed him to remain in general population until The Citizens' Voice shared copies of the reports with them.

    "We were told that he had good behavior, Jessie, that there was no reason to lock him up, that he had good behavior," said Jean.

    They were unaware of Con-ui's psychological evaluation or the apparent confession in which he said he "overreacted" to the shakedown of his cell.

    "Put him in here and you'll see an overreaction," said Don.

    The Williamses spoke for more than an hour about their son, his death - the 25th Bureau of Prisons employee killed in the line of duty - and the case against Con-ui.

    They sipped coffee at a kitchen table adorned with a small holly plant. It was the only Christmas decoration in a home they said was too pained for the joy of a holiday that came 10 months to the day after Williams' death.

    "He never talked about how dangerous it was. They said that's kind of code up there - that none of them tell their families about how dangerous that job is," said Jean. "They don't like to share what goes on. They don't want to upset their families."

    Con-ui pleaded not guilty in July to charges of first-degree murder, first-degree murder of a correctional officer and possession of contraband. His trial has been delayed indefinitely. Prosecutors left the decision on potential punishment to the Williamses. They chose the death penalty.

    "If you go ahead and take a guy that's life in prison and you give him another life sentence, you literally did nothing," said Don Williams. "You did nothing, except to give a green light now to people to go and repeat this kind of behavior. You just endangered every damn C.O. walking a cellblock."

    http://citizensvoice.com/news/free-t...eath-1.1608336

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