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Green Haven guard stabbed 3 times, burned; inmate suspected
Officer hits $175,000 jackpot
CSEA Rank And File Show Strong Support For State Contract
JAILBIRD AWARDED $7.65M IN SING SING SLASHING
N.Y. shelves sex-offender program after judge's "outrageous" ruling
Officer denies aiding Sing Sing escape plot
Thursday, April 15, 2004
The Associated Press
GREENHAVEN -- An inmate allegedly stabbed a prison guard with a sharpened 9-inch steel rod Wednesday at the maximum-security Green Haven Correctional Facility, officials said. Corey Ford, 30, charged out of his open prison cell at the guard around 12:30 p.m., throwing a cup of hot liquid on him and stabbing him repeatedly, according to the Department of Correctional Services in Albany. The guard sounded a personal safety alarm, and three officers tackled Ford to the ground.
The guard was treated for two stab wounds in the back and one in the left arm, as well as burns on the left side of his face, officials said. The injuries are not life-threatening.
Ford was moved to disciplinary housing. Besides criminal charges, he could face a 23-hour-a-day confinement.
Ford is serving 12 1/2 to 25 years for convictions for second-degree attempted murder, third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree bail jumping and second-degree kidnapping. Ford, a member of a Bronx drug ring, took part in the torture and murder of a City of Poughkeepsie man in 1994. The victim was dumped on the side of the Taconic State Parkway.
There have been 143 inmate attacks on staff in New York state prisons in the first three months year. At Green Haven, which houses 2,068 inmates, there were 37 such assaults in 2003.
By G. JEFFREY AARON
Star-Gazette
The owner of West Elmira Convenience Store and Deli says he sold a winning Mega Millions lottery ticket worth $175,000 Friday to a state correction officer.
The ticket for Friday's drawing was one of eight second-place winners sold in New York, a lottery department spokeswoman said. There were 22 second-place winners in eight states, according to the state lottery Web site.
One first-prize ticket, worth $105 million, was sold to a Maryland resident.
State lottery officials won't know the identity of the local winner until the prize is claimed. As of Wednesday afternoon, the winner hadn't stepped forward to claim, lottery officials said.
But Pradip Patel, the owner of the store at 1801 W. Water St. in West Elmira, said the man -- whom he could not identify -- regularly buys tickets for a group of his friends and co-workers. For Friday's drawing, the man bought $150 worth of tickets, Patel said.
The amount of money the winner spends on Mega Million tickets varies, depending on the size of the jackpot, but the amount spent Friday was normal for the man and his group, Patel said.
The ticket was sold Friday and the winner came in the following day for a claim form.
"The guy came back in to say he had a winning ticket and a state lottery agent came in and put up the signs saying a winning ticket was sold here," Patel said.
The ticket must be redeemed at a state lottery redemption center and the closest one is in Syracuse. The state does not provide the store selling the ticket with a share of the winnings, Patel said
On Mega Millions, winners match all five numbers and the Mega Ball. Second-place winners match all five numbers but not the Mega Ball.
ALBANY - CSEA members have overwhelmingly ratified a new four year agreement for more than 70,000 state executive branch employees. The agreement includes raises in every year of the agreement and no significant changes in health insurance coverage.
The agreement covers CSEAÐrepresented state employees in four Executive Branch bargaining units, Administrative Services Unit. Institutional Services Unit, Operational Services Unit and Division of Military and Naval Affairs. The agreement was approved by a wide margin in all four bargaining units. The agreement must now be approved by the state legislature and signed by the governor.
"Our objective from the start of negotiations was to secure the best contract we could that would address the issues that CSEA members said were important," CSEA President Danny Donohue said. "The strength of the ratification vote is a true measure of support for the CSEA Negotiating team who worked so hard to get the job done."
"Governor George Pataki and his negotiators, led by Governor's Office of Employee Relations Director George Madison also deserve credit for recognizing the importance of the CSEA workforce and working through the issues to produce positive results."
The agreement covers the period from April 2, 2003 until April 1, 2007. The tenatative agreement was announced in early March after an intense period of negotiations between the state and the union.
Among the highlights:
Pay Increases
The ratification vote count was as follows:
OSU Yes 8,023 No 1,687
ISU Yes 10,526 No 1,010
ASU Yes 14,327 No 1,515
DMNA Yes 181 No 21
Nearly 60 percent of eligible members cast ballots.
May 7, 2004 -- A Manhattan jury has awarded $7.65 million to a Sing Sing inmate who claimed prison officials ignored warnings that a street gang had targeted him before a near-fatal razor attack.
The verdict was reached Monday following a weeklong trial in federal court in Manhattan.
Defense lawyer Paul Kerson asked yesterday that his client not be identified because he remains in danger and has received death threats.
The prisoner, who is
serving 20 years to life for attempted murder at the Ossining facility, was attacked as he walked to his cell in 1998 by an inmate armed with a razor.
His lawsuit claimed he nearly bled to death from deep slashes to his face and back.
The victim had been an informant in an attempted-murder case against the gang's leader.
The suit alleged that state Department of Correctional Services Commissioner Glenn Goord and a Sing Sing official, William Connolly, were liable because they ignored repeated requests to segregate him from the general prison population
A spokesman for the attorney general's office said the state had asked a federal judge to set aside the verdict.
Correction spokesman Jim Flateau said the commissioner was planning to appeal because he believes the trial judge made errors in explaining the law to the jury.
Flateau said the 31-year-old inmate is in prison for a brutal August 1995 attack that left his victim with a serious cut to the face, a collapsed lung and damage to other organs.
Flateau said any award that survives appeals will go to the inmate's victim under the Son of Sam law, which was passed after Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz was offered a substantial sum of money for his story.
Kerson said he will argue that the inmate is entitled to the jury award because he'll be receiving it as a crime victims.
New York state is suspending a highly effective sex offender counseling program in the wake of an "outrageous" federal court ruling that the prison program violates the constitutional right against self-incrimination, Corrections Commissioner Glenn S. Goord said last week.
In a statement harshly critical of a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd, Mr. Goord said the order "effectively guts the program" and essentially gives sex offenders inappropriate veto power over their rehabilitative treatment. He said an alternative program will be used while the ruling is challenged.
Last month, Northern District Judge Hurd found that the Sex Offender Counseling Program, which requires prisoners to acknowledge the conduct that landed them in prison and to divulge information on uncharged sex offenses, violates the Fifth Amendment to the extent that inmates are denied good-time credit for refusing to self-incriminate. In light of Judge Hurd's ruling in Donhauser v. Goord, 01-CV-1535, officials last week decided to suspend the program statewide.
Mr. Goord suggested the court placed "a perceived Fifth Amendment right above the public's safety." He said the Department of Correctional Services will seek a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Mr.Donhauser, 36, was convicted of rape and burglary after entering a plea under North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970). Under Alford, a defendant is allowed to maintain factual innocence by acknowledging that the prosecution could likely prove the pending charge. Mr. Donhauser is serving a 3-to-6 year prison term for crimes committed in western New York.
As a sex offender inmate at the Oneida Correctional Facility, he was referred by a counselor to the facility's Sex Offender Counseling Program (SOCP).
The program mandates that participants accept responsibility for the conduct that led to their incarceration and also requires the inmate to reveal his or her history of sexual offenses, whether those acts led to criminal charges or not. Counselors are required to report evidence of uncharged acts of sexual or physical abuse involving children.
Mr. Donhauser complained that the SOCP requirements are inconsistent with his Alford plea and would force him to admit in a counseling program to acts he never admitted to in court. He also invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to disclose information about uncharged crimes.
A New York correction officer accused of taking bribes and helping two convicts try to get out of Sing Sing told investigators that she accepted $1,000 to bring one of the inmates contraband, but she denied assisting their escape bid, according to court records.
"I'm not stupid. They don't have state greens (prison uniforms) that fit me," Quangtrice Wilson said she told inmate Nicholas Zimmerman when he offered her $100,000 to help him "relocate."
The statement became available with the indictment of Wilson, 31, one of seven people arrested after the May 7, 2003, escape attempt. At her arraignment last Friday, Wilson pleaded not guilty to charges of third-degree bribe receiving, first-degree attempted escape, second-degree forgery, first-degree promoting prison contraband, official misconduct and fourth-degree criminal facilitation.
She was arrested Jan. 26 and has been held in the Westchester County jail on $250,000 bail since then. Westchester County Judge Kenneth Lange refused to consider defense lawyer Roger Kraminitz's request for bail reduction, saying there were no new circumstances in the case since another county judge kept that bail amount in February.
The escape of Zimmerman - a rapper known as "Puzz Pachino" - and Steven Finley was averted when prison officials grew suspicious of a man dressed as a correction officer. He left when he was challenged, but the event triggered a prison lockdown and a subsequent investigation.
Authorities said Zimmerman, serving a 14-year sentence for weapon possession, got two of his girlfriends, Jatanya Belnavis and Latrina Boyd, to plan the escape.
Wilson is accused of providing information about officers' uniforms, shift changes and the layout of the prison.
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