Media Coverage For Larry Levine

July 3, 2006
La Tuna Inmates Say Prison Doesn't Follow Procedures
By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times

December 27, 2005
Inmates say they don't belong at La Tuna Prison
By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times

January 3, 2006

Prison camp shortage forces an uneasy mix
Inmates file suit after cost-cutting plans leave them in the company of violent offenders
By MARK BABINECK

An uncomfortable legacy

Inmates held at the various La Tuna federal prison facilities are convinced they
have been denied visits, thrown in "the hole" for minor infractions and denied
access to the prison law library because they went public with a lawsuit
claiming the federal Bureau of Prisons isn't following its own procedures.
Requests for interviews with two of the inmates have been denied twice by La
Tuna officials who said it was for the safety of the prisoners. By mail, those
inmates have said they want to be interviewed. In that correspondence, they
have claimed they are experiencing retaliation for their lawful actions.

"That's just simply not true," said La Tuna spokesman Israel Jacquez. "These
guys went to the press. That's their right. ... If we believe a staff member is
retaliating against an inmate, no matter how frivolous the allegation may be, it
is referred to the office of internal affairs. " Wayne D. Beaman, special agent in
charge of the Dallas Office of the Department of Justice's Office of the
Inspector General, wouldn't comment on the specific allegations, but said, "La
Tuna is a well-managed facility." The Dallas office oversees federal prisons in
Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, Beaman said.

The inmates' lawsuit claims that the Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, is ignoring its
own policies when it houses prisoners in facilities with more severe security
measures than are required by the inmates' classifications and when it houses
inmates outside a 500-mile radius from the areas where they expect to be
released.

However, a convict needs "rock-solid proof" to make a case against the BOP,
said Jay Hurst, an attorney and chief of legislative affairs for FedCURE, an
inmates' rights group. Hurst had a client in La Tuna -- he recently was
transferred to another facility -- who also says he suffered retaliation. "The
Constitution doesn't apply in the federal system any more than it does in the
state systems," Hurst said. "It's hard to make a case because you can't get
records and you are relying on the testimony of a bunch of 'cons.' ... It's a
system-wide culture. As long as the good order and security is preserved,
that's what they care about."

Lawrence J. Levine, convicted of possessing counterfeit securities and
conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, filed the lawsuit for himself and
others in the system. He and others, including Robert Carter, convicted of mail
and tax fraud, have said they are being targeted by guards and administrators
because of their actions. Levine's lawsuit recently was dismissed by U.S.
District Judge David Briones after it appeared Levine had failed to respond to a
Bureau of Prisons motion to dismiss. However, Levine said he mailed the
response and it was lost in the mail or intercepted. He has asked the judge to
reopen the case.

Jacquez said the U.S. Attorneys Office is reviewing Levine's claim. Levine said
prison officials also have been gradually limiting his access to the law library.
Jacquez said everyone has to work their hours unless they can prove they
have an impending court date. "There is no preferential treatment," he said.

Levine said his work assignment originally was in food service because of
medical issues, including bulging disks and a heart problem, which require
limitations on the amount of walking, standing and lifting. That job allowed time
to use the law library, he said. He says he was switched to ground
maintenance, which requires prolonged standing and walking on shifts that
coincide with the law library's daytime hours. A week after stories about the
lawsuit appeared in the media, Levine says, his education schedule was
changed from daytime to evening hours, which limits his evening access.

Levine asked the judge to issue an order directing La Tuna staff to allow him
unrestricted law library access, which he argues is required by BoP policies.

Carter says he was subjected to entrapment when he picked up a bag on the
floor of the chapel -- which also serves as a visiting room -- containing two
white T-shirts and a watch. Those items were labeled as "contraband" by BOP
officials who apparently believed someone left it for him. Carter said the bag
wasn't his and said he was taken into custody by guards at the scene before
he even had a chance to look inside. Carter said he was put in the special
housing unit, or the SHU, which some inmates call "the hole" because of the
limited human contact they are allowed there.

Documents Carter provided show he lost visits from the outside for eight
months, and commissary privileges for 90 days. He said he was only allowed
one 10-minute phone call each week. All this, he said, even though he had a
clean record before the incident.

He is now at the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institute, which houses medium-
and low-security inmates, requiring an even higher level of security than his
previous La Tuna placement. "He was sanctioned for a violation and subjected
to disciplinary action," Jacquez said. "It was the introduction of contraband. ...
There's no way he could be trusted out at the (low- and minimum-security)
Biggs facility."

The original inmate complaint involved placements with appropriate security
levels. Some prisoners, including Levine and Carter, were housed at a federal
prison camp -- which is the least restrictive type of facility -- near Nellis Air
Force Base, Nev. That facility was closed for budget reasons and they were
transferred to the La Tuna Federal Satellite Low, or FSL, prison on Biggs Army
Airfield. The FSL houses both minimum- and low-security inmates, which
require a higher level of security.

The inmates say the bureau is ignoring its own stated mission of confining
offenders in safe, humane and appropriately secure facilities that provide work
and other self-improvement opportunities "to assist offenders in becoming
law-abiding citizens." They claim that transferring inmates to a higher security
facility requires "a specific and compelling reason," which the BOP did not
provide. They say these transfer policies are contained in the bureau's own
Program Statements.

"We try to place inmates in facilities where they're all equal in classification,"
Jacquez said. "It has to do with length of sentence, type of crime, history of
violence." Jacquez said part of the reason Carter originally could have been
transferred from the minimum-security camp in Nevada to the low-security
facility at Biggs is that his sentence is "pretty heavy duty. He was fairly
fortunate to be classified as minimum security."

Carter was sentenced to five years and 11 months and has a release date of
June 19, 2010.

Hurst said he believes there is a case that the BOP didn't follow its stated
policies, but, in his experience, it won't be easy to get a judge to agree. With
federal budget cuts and efforts to make the system more efficient, particularly
in the Western region, prison officials have said bed space is at a premium and
the policies can't always be followed. Jacquez said another satellite camp
opening in Tucson will help relieve some of those problems.

"We might be able to refer a little closer" to the inmates' homes, he said. The
Biggs facility "used to be just a prison camp, but the BOP needed more space
for low-security," Jacquez said. "It's rare that you're going to have a
stand-alone prison for one group of inmates."Every Biggs facility prisoner is
subject to the security measures designed for low-security inmates, which are
more strict than the minimum measures used at prison camps. The only way
an inmate is rewarded is with time off for good behavior, Jacquez said.
Otherwise it would be seen as preferential treatment, he said, which could
single an inmate out for retribution from other inmates. "You've got to treat all
the inmates the same," Jacquez said. And to be placed at the Biggs facility, he
said, they must have "very little history of disciplinary actions in prison."

Ostensibly, the purpose of those policies is to keep inmates connected with
the more positive elements in society -- including family and friends -- and in
the prison system so they don't leave prison more isolated, angry and
educated in crime than when they entered. Relatives, who often are traveling
thousands of miles, have been turned away for triggering a drug screening
device. Carter's wife, Ginny, who lives in Illinois, said she was turned away
once and when she asked for documentation of the incident, the BOP
responded that it had no records.

It is disheartening and appalling to see how the prison staff use the ion
spectrometer machine to deny visits to people who simply want to spend time
with their loved ones," said Ginny Carter. "It appears that the machine is used
both randomly and specifically when certain persons are targeted as I was."

"Press attention being concentrated on...inmates who, as a result, became virtual 'public figures' within prison
society...gained a disproportionate degree of notoriety and influence among their fellow inmates. Press attention to
an inmate who esouped a practice of noncooperation with prison regulations encouraged others to follow suit, thus
eroding the institutions' ability to deal effectively with the inmates generally."

U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE POTTER STEWART
Pell vs. Procunier
417 U.S. 817, 831 (June 1974)

About a dozen inmates convicted of white-collar crimes who are being held at
a La Tuna prison at Biggs Army Airfield are suing the federal prison system for
housing them with gang members and undocumented immigrants hundreds of
miles from their friends and relatives.

"I think the danger is great," said Ginny Carter, whose husband, Robert, was an
insurance executive convicted of mail and tax fraud. "Sometimes they (other
inmates) tell him, 'Robert, just stay in your room tomorrow because you just
need to stay in your room.' ... He knows he's got to pay the penance, but this is
above and beyond."

The inmates say their crimes and good behavior while incarcerated qualify
them for a minimum-security facility under Federal Bureau of Prisons rules.
They say the bureau is violating its own policies, which include trying to place
inmates within 500 miles of the location where they are expected to be
released.

El Paso is very, very far and very costly to get to," said Carter, who lives in
Chicago. She said her husband is a former Evanston, Ill., city councilman who
ran for state senator.

About 100 inmates at the Federal Prison Camp-Nellis in Las Vegas, Nev., were
transferred to institutions in Mississippi, Alabama, South Dakota and to the
Federal Satellite Low-La Tuna facility in El Paso. The Nellis camp was closed by
the bureau as a cost-cutting measure, according to media reports. At the time,
a bureau official was quoted as saying prison officials would try to locate the
inmates within the 500-mile radius.

Bureau officials, both locally and in Washington, D.C., could not be reached for
comment.

The inmates say the bureau is ignoring its own stated mission of confining
offenders in safe, humane and appropriately secure facilities that provide work
and other self-improvement opportunities "to assist offenders in becoming
law-abiding citizens."

They claim that transferring inmates to a higher security facility requires "a
specific and compelling reason." They say these transfer policies are
contained in the bureau's own Program Statements.

As the government has no right to chain, shackle and/or torture a person just
because he's an inmate, similarly, they can't move him potentially thousands of
miles from home, and put him in a far more restrictive and onerous institution
on a whim," Lawrence Levine, convicted of counterfeiting securities, wrote in a
court filing. "Petitioners accordingly assert they've been treated in violation of
the BOP's own procedures and in a fashion that violates the 5th Amendment to
the United States."

Another of the inmates, Ethan Roberts, wrote that he witnessed several
beatings of prisoners, which he said gang members call "disciplining." He also
said minimum security prisoners who work outside the perimeter are forced
by gang members to bring drugs into the secure portion of the prison.

Levine said he witnessed the start of a fight between two Hispanic gangs. One
gang was angry because the other gang allegedly tried to frame one of its
members by putting contraband in his bed. The contraband was moved before
a correctional officer searched the bed. Shortly thereafter, the gang member
who planted the contraband was severely beaten with broom and mop
handles, according to Levine.

Levine, the lead petitioner, and Mark Cohn, a La Tuna inmate who is a former
attorney and is helping with the lawsuit, also are claiming that they have been
harassed since they filed the action. Levine and Cohn said in a filing that they
were assigned duties violating their medical work restrictions. Cohn also
stated that the work duties are scheduled to prevent him from using the law
library.

Levine and the others claim there is a vast difference between a minimum
security facility and La Tuna, a low-security facility they say is run at a medium-
security level.

The differences include restrictions on movement, razor-wire fences,
restrictions on visitation, restricted bathroom breaks, lack of privacy,
identification checks, strip searches when returning from work details and
more.

At minimum security prisons, inmates can walk with visitors on grounds that
often aren't fenced and they can work in the community with little supervision.
At La Tuna, because of restrictions on movement, getting a prescription filled
and dropping off a library book inside the prison can take more than half a day,
they said. Inmates are given scheduled opportunities to go to the bathroom,
where they are watched by guards.

"The difference between the two types of prisons is harsh," Levine wrote.

So far, Carter said her husband has managed to avoid violence.

"He's been protected. He's befriended the right people," Carter said. "But to go
to sleep at night wondering if something's going to happen to him, that's hard
on a family. He didn't kill anyone; he's a white collar criminal.

"Jailhouse lawyers are sometimes a menace to prison discipline...and often succeeds in establishing his own power
structure quite apart from the formal system of warden, guards, and trusties which the prisons seek to maintain."

U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE BYRON R. WHITE
Johnson vs. Avery,
393 U.S 483 (February 1969)

Hundreds of miles from their homes and surrounded by violent criminals, a
group of inmates at the La Tuna Satellite federal prison near El Paso yearn for
the days when serving time meant freedom of movement, rare body searches
and a bunk within a day's drive of their families. But a reduction of
minimum-security camps, some of which had been ridiculed in the past as
easygoing "Club Fed" facilities, has meant nonviolent offenders are
shoulder-to-shoulder with those considered to be more dangerous by the U.S.
Bureau of Prisons.

"A number of the inmates express a great deal of pride concerning their gang
affiliations," Lawrence Jay Levine, serving a 10-year sentence for selling
methamphetamine, wrote in a lawsuit. Levine helped fashion the lawsuit on
behalf of himself and dozens of other inmates transferred to low-security La
Tuna earlier this year from the minimum-security Nellis Federal Prison Camp
near Las Vegas, which is closing next month as a cost-cutting measure.

The rise in classification from a minimum- to low-security prison has meant a
culture shock for many Nellis transfers. Inmates say once-sporadic searches
are now regular, the inmate population is tougher, and movement is closely
regulated and monitored, even trips to the bathroom.

Levine and a band of former Nellis residents are suing the Bureau of Prisons,
demanding they be returned to minimum security and moved farther west than
El Paso, which for many of them is well beyond the 500-mile maximum
distance from home the prison system seeks to maintain.

Unavailability of federal minimum-security camps is a festering issue, prison
consultant Ed bales said. The inmates' problem is that the government appears
to have neither the room nor the inclination to help. "they're seeing a different
element if they're in anything higher than a camp status. Bureau of Prisons
spokesman Mike Truman said low-security units are designed to house
minimum- and low-security prisoners together, meaning those with the lowest
classification are not technically out of place under government rules."Some
minimum-security inmates in low (security prisons) are allowed to go outside
the gate and do work, such as cut grass," Truman said.

Levine has been a frequent jailhouse litigator in his more than seven years in
custody, but some fellow inmates supporting the lawsuit are recent arrivals
who say they just want to serve their time in an appropriate setting.

'A different element'

Ginny Carter, wife of La Tuna inmate Robert Carter, is helping file the
paperwork on behalf of unhappy Nellis transfers at La Tuna. She contends her
60-year-old husband deserves to be at a prison camp after pleading guilty to a
$17 million insurance fraud scheme. The judge recommended a
minimum-security camp, and Nellis had been ideal for the Carters because
most of their family is in California. She said the move 590 miles east to Texas,
coupled with the hike in security classification, was a double hardship.

"The reason they established the camps is to isolate these people from that
(harder core) environment," said Carter, who has pleaded innocent to charges
related to her husband's scheme. "My husband certainly accepted his
responsibility. I don't think they should be coddled, but they should have some
dignity."

Bales, the consultant, said recent closures of prison camps were blamed on
cost-cutting, but the federal prison system also appears eager to shed the
"Club Fed" legacy.

Nellis, along with the Eglin camp in Florida and the Seymour Johnson camp in
North Carolina, were preferred destinations for white-collar criminals and
other low-risk inmates, All are attached to Air Force bases, where they provide
convict labor, and all three are in the process of shutting down.

Facilities with relaxed environments and cush work details no longer are
priorities for the prison bureau. I think it's the main reason they closed the
facilities," said Bales, who added that many camps now are located in
complexes adjacent to tougher units. Wardens who oversee the multi-unit
complexes tend to treat prisoners in camps more strictly, however,
minimum-security prisoners typically coexist well with low- or even
medium-security inmates.

Ginny Carter said the prison system should try harder to accede to court
recommendations on classification.

"Why bother having judges recommend how to process people, then not follow
it?" she said.