Alabama: On June 24, 2024, Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith told the Birmingham News that county jail guard Tony Dewayne Jackson, 29, had been arrested for smuggling “non-­drug” contraband into the lockup. Jackson was no longer working at the jail, but Smith didn’t say how or when his employment ended. It wasn’t clear if he was in custody, and the contraband also wasn’t identified. The former employee “[compromised] the safety and security of both inmates and staff,” Smith said, adding that the investigation was ongoing.

Arizona: On May 23, 2024, the Arizona Republic reported that $340,000 was missing from a nonprofit formed to save an animal shelter at the Maricopa County Jail. The Maricopa Animal Safe Haven (MASH) Unit was launched by former Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R), who funded it with money that was designated for the benefit of detainees. After Arpaio’s 2018 electoral loss, newly elected Sheriff Paul Penzone (D) founded a nonprofit to take over the MASH Unit. Over $1.5 million was raised from corporate donors, including Petsmart and the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, but IRS filings showed the money went largely to an architect and a contractor. The new facility was never built, either, and the MASH Unit remains at the jail. As PLN reported, Arpaio, 91, was sentenced to jail in 2017 for ignoring a federal court order to make his deputies stop racially profiling Hispanic drivers, but he was pardoned a month later by then-­Pres. Donald J. Trump (R). [See: PLN, Jan. 2022, p.1.] Penzone did not seek re-­election in 2023, leaving the following January to take over charitable giving for health insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

California: The state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said that prisoner Luis Padilla, 42, was fatally stabbed at Ironwood State Prison on June 22, 2024, and three fellow prisoners were suspected in the assault: Samual Ricardez, 28, Juan Madrigal, 26, and Jonathan Orduno, 23. An alleged street gang member, Padilla began serving a life term in 2001 for witness tampering in Los Angeles County. His three attackers were also serving life terms for first-­degree murder convictions in San Diego County, with sentences handed down in 2014 to Ricardez, in 2022 to Orduno and in 2023 to Madrigal. All three were placed in restrictive housing at the prison. No motive for the assault was revealed.

Connecticut: Prisoners at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Danbury were without water on May 23, 2024, the Trumbull Times reported, and officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) didn’t know when the problem would be fixed. CNN reported that Steve Bannon, an adviser to former Pres. Donald J. Trump (R), was to report to the prison on July 1, 2024, to serve a four-­month sentence for Contempt of Congress, after stonewalling lawmakers’ demand for testimony about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The prison has suffered water outages since April 29, 2024, when the Connecticut Post reported an hours-­long disruption in service. BOP said that prisoners have access to drinking water but provided no details, except that it distributed “essential hygiene kits” containing wipes and anti-­bacterial sanitizer, plus something called “portable waste units,” but it was unclear whether that was anything more than a plastic bag for prisoners to urinate and defecate in. During the COVID-­19 pandemic in February 2022, Connecticut Insider said that an anonymous prison staffer filed a complaint with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, complaining of standing sewage in tunnels used by guards. The month before that, BOP officials blocked parts of the prison to the state’s U.S. Senators, Richard Blumenthal (D) and Chris Murphy (D). The lawmakers told the Danbury News Times that the tour was “a joke.”

Connecticut: The Hartford Courant reported that BOP prisoner Tyshawn McDade, 39, faces 20 extra years in prison after an accomplice pleaded guilty on June 11, 2024, to smuggling 20 Suboxone strips hidden in a balloon that McDade swallowed during a November 2022 visit at the U.S. Penitentiary (USP) in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. A guard ended the visit when he saw McDade swallow the balloon, leading to charges and a guilty plea for the visitor, Samantha Ellis, 34. She remains free on $10,000 bond pending sentencing. Before his latest charges, McDade was serving a 10-­year sentence for a 2017 conviction for distributing crack cocaine in Hartford, where Ellis is also from. See: United States v. Ellis, USDC (D. Ct.), Case No. 3:24-­cr-­00055.

Florida: An “extremely amped up” transient—who was also naked, but for a “ladies top”—crashed his Toyota Camry into the lobby of the Martin County Jail on June 3, 2024, WPTV in West Palm Beach reported. Joseph Leedy, 40, then poured motor oil on the car, in which he was also living, and threatened to light it afire. When he also began throwing rubber snakes and cellphones at them, deputies of Sheriff Bill Snyder were “forced” to open fire with a Taser, Chief Deputy John Budensiek said. As he went down, Leedy reportedly said that “the devil told me to kill as many people as possible,” adding “why didn’t you shoot me” and “fuck me in the ass, I came here to kill the police.” Responding paramedics tried to calm Leedy down with several doses of ketamine to no avail. Believing he was high on something, deputies booked Leedy into the lockup and ordered a toxicology report.

Georgia: On June 16, 2024, state prisoner Jaydrekus Hart, 34, fatally shot a Smith State Prison kitchen worker and then turned the gun on himself, WSB in Atlanta reported. Hart, who was nine years into a 20-­year term for manslaughter and aggravated battery, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. State Department of Corrections (DOC) officials could not say how he got the gun, but a suicide note indicated he was in a “personal relationship” with his victim, Aramark Food Service employee Aureon Shavea Grace, 24. She had worked at the lockup since January 2024. She was also the second prison employee killed in less than a year; guard Robert Clark was fatally assaulted by prisoner Layton Lester in October 2023, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2023, p.63.] The prison’s former warden, Brian Dennis Adams, is awaiting trial on charges of taking payoffs from prisoner Nathan Weekes, who allegedly attempted to protect his smuggling operation by having girlfriend guard Keisha Janae Jones hire former prisoner Christopher Sumlin to kill Weekes’ ex-­girlfriend, another guard named Jessia Gerling—a hit that Sumlin botched, killing Gerling’s octogenarian neighbor Bobby Kicklighter, instead. [See: PLN, July 2023, p.11.]

Guatemala: Prison officials in this Central American country identified 102 guards for criminal investigation, after retaking control of a prison known as “El Infiernito”—“Little Hell”—from some 225 “Barrio 18” gang members held there. Voice of America reported that the prisoners paid off the guards in order to run an illegal scam-­call center from the lockup, where they also raised chickens and kept pet raccoons, even stocking a surrounding lagoon with crocodiles. About 400 police removed the gang members from the prison, recovering 30 mobile phones used in the call center operation to scam funds for the gang’s bloody turf war with the rival MS-­13 gang. The internecine violence has claimed over 4,300 lives in the last year alone.

Hawaii: On June 25, 2024,Anthony Periera II, 52, a former state prison guard at Oahu Community Correctional Center, was found guilty in the fatal shooting of his mother in June 2016. Hawaii News Now said that his defense attorney argued Periera shot his mom, Barbara Periera, 66, because he mistakenly thought she had killed his daughter and wife—whom he had found out was cheating on him. It was unclear when or how his employment with the state DOC ended.

Indiana: Indiana State Prison guard Janise Clark, 38, was arrested as she reported for duty on May 26, 2024, when fellow guards examined her suspicious-­looking lunch sandwich and found two baggies with a half-­pound of marijuana between the slices of bread. WSBT in South Bend reported that Clark admitted to smuggling but said she’d “lost count” how many times; she estimated that she’d taken upwards of $20,000 in bribes, too. She was charged with trafficking with an inmate and bribery and held in the LaPorte County Jail on a $15,000 bond. Two days later, on May 28, 2024, fellow guard Lowreatha Roberts, 56, was stopped on her way into the prison with what she said was a tray of brownies baked by someone she knew. Upon inspection, the tray revealed two baggies with 19 ounces of tobacco. She claimed that no bribe was taken for what she called her first smuggling attempt. She was charged with felony official misconduct and misdemeanor trafficking with an inmate, the South Bend Tribune said.

Indiana: State DOC guard Sgt. Shaunacy A. Edmonds, 34, was arrested on May 28, 2024, for allegedly hitting and kneeing a prisoner while he was restrained in the infirmary at Pendleton Correctional Facility two weeks earlier. The unnamed prisoner was not resisting at the time, the Muncie Star-­Press reported, though he had earlier admitted threatening to spit on guards and to kill members of his family. Edmonds was booked into Madison County Detention Center and released on a $500 bond.

Indiana: Jay County Jail guard William Brandon Bentz, 25, was arrested on May 2, 2024, for having sex with an unnamed detainee, the Muncie Star-­Press reported. The detainee told investigators that the guard visited her cell “several times a day during his shift” to fondle her and get her to expose herself, before eventually taking her to an exam room to have sex on April 28, 2024. That, she said, “turned out to be more than she wanted.” But fellow detainees said she took “tobacco pouches in return for sexual favors.” Bentz posted $10,000 bail, after which he was released and fired from the lockup.

Indiana: Hendricks County Work Release Facility guard Andrew Whitman was arrested after admitting to investigators on May 15, 2024, that he texted a photo of his genitals to an unnamed detainee. WXIN in Indianapolis reported that the detainee told jail officials in April 2024 that she had been meeting with Whitman for two months in fear of retaliation, showing them messages they found “consistent with two people who were engaged in a romantic relationship, including messages that were of a sexual nature.” Whitman identified the penis in the photo as his own, admitting he was “dumb” to send it. The detainee sent pictures back, he added, though he insisted that was “not justifying my actions.”

Kosovo: On May 23, 2024, the parliament of this tiny Balkan nation (population 1.8 million) agreed to lease Denmark 300 beds to be refurbished in a prison in Giljan, Reuters News reported. Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said the rented space would hold third-­country prisoners—those neither from Denmark nor Kosovo—who are awaiting deportation. He hoped that the 10-­year deal, valued at €210 million ($280 million USD), would send “a clear signal to criminal foreigners that their future is not in Denmark.” The World Organization Against Torture decried the move for violating European Union rules protecting prisoners from discrimination, torture, disruption of family life and lack of access to an attorney of their choice.

Louisiana: WDSU in New Orleans reported that two of four detainees who escaped the Tangipahoa Parish Jail in Hammond during recreation time were recaptured on May 27, 2024, two days after they shimmied under a wall and scaled two fences to flee the lockup. For almost a day, skipped headcounts kept jailers from missing Travon Johnson, 21, and Avery Guidry, 19, Sheriff’s Office Chief Jimmy Travis said; another day after that, they were found hiding in a dumpster outside a Dollar General store. Both were being held on murder charges along with Omarion Hookfin, 19, who also escaped, as did Jamarcus Cyprian, 20, who was serving time for armed robbery; he remains at large. Hookfin was found inside an abandoned house nearby on May 31, 2024, according to WWL in New Orleans. A $10,000 reward has now been offered for Cyprian’s recapture. Meanwhile his brother, Jamarcus Allen, 23, was arrested on June 21, 2024, for choking his one-­year-­old daughter and his elderly uncle, WDSU said.

Massachusetts: Barnstable County House of Correction guard Gregory Djaoen, 38, was placed on leave on June 2, 2024, after he was charged with two counts of assault and battery for an alleged attack on an unnamed detainee sometime between May 24 and May 26, 2024, WCVB in Boston said. Almost a year earlier, the guard allegedly threatened fellow motorists with a gun while driving on a freeway in July 2023; though he was pulled over by state police, charges were later dropped in that case. Prosecutors have now asked for surrender of his firearm license.

Massachusetts: The U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Massachusetts said that former Middleton House of Correction guard Gregorit Sanchez, 29, was sentenced to five years of probation on June 17, 2024, for his role in a drug-­smuggling scheme involving 20 others at the lockup. On November 11, 2021, Sanchez was caught smuggling a package into the jail containing 33 grams of fentanyl pills, 1 gram of crack cocaine, 14 grams of powder cocaine and Suboxone sublingual films, as well as cigarettes and a SIM card for a contraband cellphone, which Sanchez had previously obtained for detainee Elvis DeJesus; he was the intended recipient of the drugs and was using the phone to coordinate their distribution in the lockup. He also pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme.

Michigan: MLive Media Group said that former BOP guard Cara Wozniak, 33, was indicted on May 28, 2024, on charges of committing a sex act with a ward and providing contraband in prison. She allegedly had sexual intercourse in September 2023 with an unnamed FCI-­Milan prisoner, to whom she also allegedly smuggled undescribed contraband between April and November of that same year. No arrest was announced, nor any bond, and it was unclear when or how her BOP employment ended.

Minnesota: The state DOC kept the Minnesota Correctional Facility (MCF) in Stillwater on lockdown at least a day after two unnamed guards were allegedly attacked by prisoners on May 25, 2024, KSTP in Minneapolis reported. Both guards were treated and released from a hospital. Two prisoners, also unnamed, were accused and moved to the maximum-­security MCF-­Oak Park Heights. As PLN reported, MCF-­Stillwater was on lockdown over a hot Labor Day weekend in 2023 after a group of 100 prisoners refused to leave a dayroom to return to their un-­air-­conditioned cells; they were also protesting dirty water, as well as limited phone use and out-­of-­cell time. [See: PLN, Mar. 2024, p.52.]

Minnesota: When convicted murderer Peter Schoen, 58, came before the state pardon board on May 30, 2024, an unlikely advocate vouched for him: Guy Wicklander, a former state DOC guard, testified that Schoen saved his life when another prisoner, Mark Profit, attacked him at MCF-­Oak Park Heights in December 1999, the Washington Post reported. Schoen distracted Profit’s attention, and by the time Profit finished stabbing him—in the nostril, taking out a few teeth, too—other guards had arrived, preventing him from returning to finish off the now-­retired guard. The board was unmoved, though, putting off Schoen’s request for another five years. Profit, 38, died of a fatal overdose in January 2002 before he could be sentenced for the assaults.

Missouri: On June 14, 2024, state Judge Ryan Horsman vacated the conviction of Sandra Hemme, 63, releasing her after 43 years that she spent in prison for the 1980 killing of Patricia Jeschke, 31—a murder for which St. Joseph police actually suspected one of their own, AP News reported. But their investigation into Off. Michael Coleman, then 22, ended abruptly despite finding Jeschke’s earrings in his home and a fraudulent charge he attempted with her credit card, which he claimed to have found in a ditch. He also then left the state under investigation for insurance fraud involving a truck that had been spotted near the scene of Jeschke’s murder. Despite these clues, cops focused on Hemme, then 20, who had been in and out of state psychiatric hospitals since age 12; they noted that her last discharge was the date of the murder, and no witnesses corroborated her account of the next day, which it took for her to hitchhike 100 miles to her parent’s home. While being interrogated, she was so heavily medicated that she had trouble keeping her head up, and her statements were “wildly contradictory.” Nevertheless, she eventually made a deal to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. Reviewing that, Judge Horsman said that “no evidence whatsoever outside of Ms. Hemme’s unreliable statements connects her to the crime” and declared her innocent, agreeing that the evidence pointed toward Holman, who died in 2015.

Montana: Yellowstone County Detention Facility detainees Myron Scott Goesahead, 20, and Ashtin Zant Glen, 19, were charged with attempted murder on June 24, 2024, KTVQ in Billings reported. The pair allegedly attacked two unnamed guards with homemade shanks two days earlier in what prosecutors called a planned assault, pointing to a homemade jail map marked with the guards’ location that was recovered from Goesahead. He was disarmed after two bystanders—who may have been fellow detainees—put Glen in a chokehold until he passed out. One guard was treated onsite, the other at a hospital, after which he was released. Goesahead was being held for killing a Billings infant and his father in November 2023. Glen was in jail for a Lockwood shooting that same month.

New Jersey: Former Cumberland County Jail guard Tabatha Roman, 37, was acquitted of criminal endangerment charges on June 19, 2024, at the end of a trial over her role in the February 2017 suicide of detainee Megan Moore, 21, N.J. Advance Media reported. Moore’s survivors earlier collected $500,000 in settlements from the County and the jail’s medical contractor, CFG Health Systems, LLC, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Nov. 2023, p.22.]

New York: Westchester County Jail guards Peter Cumberbatch and Sharia Smythe were arrested on June 11, 2024, along with an unnamed former fellow guard and two unidentified commissary workers at the lockup, the New York Post reported. All five were charged with taking unspecified bribes from unnamed sources to commit unreported crimes, in what the county DOC called a “crackdown.”

North Carolina: Former state DOC guard Tana Egusasa Hill, 43, pleaded guilty on June 12, 2024, to federal charges that she defrauded COVID-­19 rental relief payments from the state Housing Opportunities and Prevention of Evictions fund, known as NC-­HOPE, the Roanoke-­Chowan News Herald reported. Hill was a guard captain at Pasquotank Correctional Institution before she resigned on June 7, 2024. For her guilty plea to filing phony lease agreements for multiple Hereford County properties, she faces up to 10 years in federal prison. Her husband, former Bertie Correctional Institution Assistant Warden Sean Dillard, pleaded guilty to the same crime in August 2023, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Mar. 2024, p.35.]

Ohio: The Dayton Daily News reported that former Montgomery County Jail guard Keith Stockman, 24, was indicted on May 24, 2024, for defrauding the county of almost $5,000 in paid leave that he took for U.S. military assignments which never occurred. Stockman resigned on March 11, 2024, after an unnamed supervisor stumbled upon the fraud. The guard spent just over a year on the job. It was unclear which branch of the military Stockman pretended to serve in, nor his status there. After missing his first scheduled arraignment, Stockman was a no-­show at his second 12 days later on June 18, 2024, prompting Judge Timothy O’Connell to sign a warrant for the former guard’s arrest.

Ohio: A 17-­year-­old high school student enrolled in a community college guard intern program at the Butler County Jail was charged on March 1, 2024, with bringing ecstasy, marijuana and cellphones to detainees Willie Attaway, 32, and Larkin McGowan, 33—one of whom she also admitted having sex with, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. The teen said that one detainee served as lookout for guards while she hooked up with the other. But an unnamed jailhouse informant ratted her out. Investigators then found incriminating text message threads on her cellphone, and she confessed. Though she is being tried as a juvenile, a judge overruled her attorney’s motion to suppress that confession. Attaway is being held for the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) after pleading guilty to the 2021 robbery and murder of Madeira convenience store owner Roop Gupta. McGowan was also on hold for USMS but was released on March 4, 2024. Neither was charged in connection with the smuggling because no contraband was found on them, Chief Dep. Anthony Dwyer said.

Oklahoma: On June 5, 2024, a charge of soliciting a minor for sex was added to counts already filed against former Tulsa County Family Center for Juvenile Justice (FCJJ) guard Jonathan Michael Hines, 26, Tulsa World reported. A lawsuit filed in May 2024 by 21 alleged victims accused Hines and fellow employees of bribing them for sex using candy, vape pens and cash. After Hines allegedly told one detainee that “your dick is big today,” the child watched as the guard anally raped another detainee, whom he first plied with marijuana. Hines also allegedly used his Apple watch to show both victims pornographic images of women, as well as videos of the guard having sex with other juvenile detainees. See: Doe v. Juv. Bur. Tulsa Cty. Dist. Ct., USDC (E.D. Okla.), Case No. 6:24-­cv-­00182. Hines was fired shortly before he was arrested on April 26, 2024, on charges of human trafficking, having a cellphone in jail and destroying evidence. He is being held in the county jail on $200,000 bond.

Oklahoma: For assaulting a BOP guard in his office at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Reyes Luis Holguin, 31, was sentenced to an additional 48 months in prison on June 6, 2024. According to the USAO for the Western District of Oklahoma, Holguin entered the unnamed guard’s office and announced: “You are not leaving.” But he apparently underestimated the guard, who quickly subdued Holguin. The prisoner was serving a 10-­year term handed down in March 2022 for selling fentanyl to an Arizona woman who then fatally overdosed. Years earlier, in May 2014, he was arrested by Phoenix cops for kidnapping his 7-­month-­old son from the child’s mother, the Arizona Republic reported. The outcome of that case was unclear.

Pennsylvania: Fired Lycoming Prison guard Olivia Louise Katzmaier, 25, pleaded guilty in state court on May 24, 2024, to theft and tampering charges in a deal to avoid prison for having sex with a prisoner, one that had earlier included her testimony against him at his trial for having a contraband phone that they used to exchange love notes and racy photos. Pennsylvania Advance Media reported that her erstwhile beau, James E. King III, 46, got an 18-­to-­60-­month sentence in March 2024 after pleading guilty to the contraband charge, as PLN also reported. [See: PLN, May 2024, p.61.] On the day of Katzmaier’s plea, a guard at Susquehanna County Correctional Facility, Amy Adams, 44, confessed to an investigating state trooper that she had sex with an unnamed detainee there. The Scranton Times-­Tribune reported that the detainee told cops she grabbed his genitals and performed oral sex on him in a storage shed, before they had sexual intercourse at his work release site. That’s where she later appeared, extorting sex from him again on a garage bay floor with threats to tell his partner about the earlier incidents. Adams was arrested on June 10, 2024, and charged with institutional sexual assault, official oppression, sexual extortion and stalking. She was released on $25,000 bail. Warden John Krakash said her employment at the jail had ended, but he didn’t say when or how.

Pennsylvania: For attacking a guard at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) in Huntingdon in June 2023, state prisoner Shawndell Miller, 29, was charged with assault on May 25, 2024, WHTM in Harrisburg reported. The unnamed guard was left with a concussion, bruising, facial abrasions and a broken tooth. Miller was then moved to SCI-­Greene. Two days later, on May 27, 2024, state DOC guard Rafael Marcelino, 33, was arrested at SCI-­Mahanoy when he was nabbed in a sting trying to smuggle Buprenophrine strips into the lockup, the Shenandoah Sentinel said. An un-­incarcerated accomplice, Estella Aaron, 40, was caught with 140 strips in her purse and arrested at the jail, too, telling responding state cops: “I fucked up.” Both were booked into Schuylkill County Prison. Marcelino was released on $10,000 cash bail, while Aaron was unable to post her $25,000 bail.

Pennsylvania: NCPA Media reported on June 22, 2024, that Bradford County Correctional Facility detainee Haley Haughie, 22, was charged with assault, battery and disorderly conduct after an altercation with an unnamed guard who caught Haughie using the bathroom in the wrong cell. It wasn’t the first time the detainee had been found using the toilet in a neighboring cell, but when reprimanded, she allegedly rushed the guard and punched her several times in the head.

Rhode Island: Fired Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility (DWWDF) guard Kaii Almeida-­Falcones, 30, pleaded guilty on June 13, 2024, to smuggling 200 Suboxone strips into the lockup in February 2021. The contraband was found on detainee Emmanuel Nolasco, 37, who admitted taking part in the smuggling scheme, the USAO for the District of Rhode Island said. Charges for that were added to drug-­trafficking charges he also faced, for which Nolasco was then sentenced to nine years in federal prison in November 2023. DWWDF is publicly owned but privately operated, primarily for the U.S. Marshals Service.

Russia: Federal prison service officials told al Jazeera that military special forces had freed two guards taken hostage at a detention center in Rostov-­on-­Don by a group affiliated with ISIL (also known as ISIS) in a bloody operation on June 16, 2024, that left an unknown number of the hostage-­takers dead. The same group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 144 in the audience of a concert hall near Moscow in March 2024. It is reportedly targeting Russia in retaliation for its support of Syrian Pres. Bashar al-­Assad in that country’s 13-­year-­old civil war.

Tennessee: Carter County Detention Center guard Leonard Stratton II, 32, was arrested and fired on June 9, 2024, after he was caught bringing narcotics and tobacco into the lockup, allegedly to sell to detainees. WJHL in Johnson City said that he was booked into the jail on a $10,000 bond.

Texas: KTHX in Houston reported that state Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prisoner Jabari Lewis, 25, was charged with murder on June 17, 2024, in the death of guard Jovian Motley, 27. Motley was the only one of a group of TDCJ guards who didn’t make it out of Lewis’ cell alive following a bloody “extraction” effort at the Wainwright Unit in November 2023. Lewis has since been moved to the Allred Unit, serving an earlier 10-­year sentence for burglary, drug possession and aggravated robbery.

Ukraine: As of June 2024, some 5,000 prisoners had taken advantage of an offer to have their sentences commuted to parole in exchange for enlisting in the country’s military and serving without leave until the end of war with Russia, The Telegraph reported. Most were convicted of property and drug crimes, and their applications must be court-­approved. No one may apply who was convicted of sex crimes, corruption, treason, vehicular manslaughter or multiple murders. Unlike Russian prisoners, who report being pressed into military service, the Ukrainian prisoners say their decision is voluntary, driven by patriotism, a desire for work and skills—even revenge. One named Oleksander pointed to his “big motivation: lots of my family died in Mariupol,” the port city that fell to Russian forces in May 2022 after a three-­month siege that decimated over 70% of its population.

Washington: Former King County Jail guard Mosses Ramos, 40, pleaded guilty on May 30, 2024, to taking bribes for distributing methamphetamine and fentanyl pills, according to KING in Seattle. As PLN reported, the 17-­year veteran employee was indicted in federal court along with two detainees and three unincarcerated accomplices in November 2023 for smuggling meth and fentanyl into the lockup the previous March and April. [See: PLN, Mar. 2024, p.8.] Those charges are still pending against detainees Michael Anthony Barquet, 37—who is also charged with a double murder—and Francisco Montero, 25, who is awaiting trial on his original drug and bribery charges. Their associates in the smuggling scheme—Neca Silvestre, 38; Katrina Cazares, 38; and Kayara Zepeda Montero, 27—are also awaiting trial for coordinating delivery of the contraband and payment to Ramos.

Wisconsin: Gov. Tony Evers (D) ordered flags flown at half-­mast at state offices on June 26, 2024, after state DOC guard Cory Proulx, 49, died from injuries sustained in an attack two days earlier by a teenager incarcerated at Lincoln Hills-­Copper Lake Schools. WSAW in Wausau said that Javarius Hurd, 16, is now being held for second-­degree murder on a $100,000 cash bond for striking Proulx and causing him to fall and hit his head. The guard had intervened to protect an unnamed 25-­year-­old fellow guard after Hurd allegedly threw soap in her face and punched her. Afterward, the youth climbed atop a gym basketball hoop, where he was apprehended. Proulx was taken to a hospital, where he was eventually declared brain-­dead and taken off life support.   

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