was arrested Friday and accused of

accepting bribes in a scheme to

smuggle drugs into the prison, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials.

TDCJ internal affairs agents arrested Sgt. Oswald Ramirez, 35, Friday night in connection with a sting operation at the prison, said Larry Todd, spokesman for TDCJ. Working on tips from informants, agents made contact with Ramirez and arranged to deliver $15,000 and three pounds of marijuana to him. Ramirez allegedly was planning to smuggle the drugs and money into the prison, Todd said. "Our agents believe that Ramirez was involved in planning to traffic marijuana to inmates inside the unit," Todd said. "Our agents also believe that he may already have smuggled smaller amounts of marijuana to some inmates inside the unit." Ramirez was booked into Potter County Jail and charged with two counts of bribery, court records show. He also was charged with one count of forgery in another matter, court records show. Ramirez posted bond and was released Monday, a jail spokesman said. The bribery charges that Ramirez face are second-degree felonies, which carry a possible sentence two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 on each count, said Mike Meredith, spokesman for the 47th District Attorney's office.

Crackdown on Drug Trafficking in State Prisons

Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 16, 1999

©1999 San Francisco Chronicle

The drug trade is so cash-flush, dazzling and powerful that there are always a few prison workers willing to risk their livelihoods and freedom for some extra spending money -- they agree to smuggle heroin and other drugs into prison. Now, with the formation of a new internal affairs unit, prison drug traffickers are on the run. A major initiative by the California Department of Corrections to clean up its drug-infested prisons and clear up its tarnished image is beginning to bear fruit. The agency's investigators recently cracked a narcotics smuggling ring at San Quentin Prison whose members allegedly included a prison guard, a prison cook and a paroled inmate. It has also broken narcotics cases involving sworn peace officers and other personnel at Ironwood and New Folsom state prisons. The internal affairs unit was created in July 1997 in the wake of allegations that Corcoran State Prison guards had staged gladiator-style fights among inmates. Headed by former Oakland police officer Rick Ehle, its staff of 100 includes veteran narcotics agents. According to grand jury transcripts, internal affairs investigators penetrated the San Quentin ring in late November with the aid of informants within and outside the prison. The suspects smuggled heroin, cocaine and marijuana to an inmate dealer, and his runners distributed the drugs to the ``415'' prison gang. Inmates' families paid for the drug shipments by wiring money to a Western Union account. ``There is a serious problem of drug trafficking in the prisons,'' said Dan Carson, of the legislative analyst's office in Sacramento. ``It's a real concern. And there have been a number of incidents of correctional staff being part and parcel of the drug trade. ``There's a lot of evidence drugs are finding their way into prison,'' he said. ``Heroin, meth -- just about everything seems to find its way behind the walls. Whatever is out there is clearly getting inside the joint.'' The Department of Corrections estimates that at least 70 percent of the state prison system's 160,000 inmates have a substance abuse problem of one kind or another, but it is unclear how many inmates use drugs in prison daily. Tiny capfuls of cocaine usually sell in prison for $20 in cash or $25 in canteen goods from the prison store, Special Agent Tom Moore told a Contra Costa County grand jury in December. Drugs are often traded by inmates for radios, stereos and televisions, and sometimes traded for sexual favors and to solicit acts of violence against other inmates, he said. ``Dope in prison is a very lucrative business,'' Special Agent Mark Roussopoulos of internal affairs told the grand jury. Some guards are coerced by inmates into smuggling drugs. Inmates may first ask a friendly guard to procure insignificant personal items for them, then later blackmail the guard -- who has broken the law by bringing contraband into the prison -- into supplying drugs. Agents used a sting operation to bust the San Quentin narcotics ring. Three suspects were arrested on November 22 and 23 in Richmond, after an undercover agent provided them with drugs that they allegedly agreed to smuggle into San Quentin. Correctional Officer April C. Reynolds, 36, of San Francisco, was charged with two felony counts of heroin trafficking. Reynolds, a single mother who began working at San Quentin three years ago, was released this month from the Contra Costa County Jail after her bail was reduced from $40,000 to $5,000. Her arraignment is scheduled today in Contra Costa County Superior Court in Martinez. She could not be reached for comment. Terry R. Clay, 27, a parolee, was also charged with heroin trafficking. He had been released from San Quentin the day before his arrest. Sherwood Dwayne Coleman, 25, of Hercules -- a supervising cook at San Quentin -- was charged with cocaine trafficking. He was arrested in Richmond after an undercover agent provided him with a packet of cocaine to smuggle into the prison. His trial is scheduled for February 22. Coleman was unavailable for comment. In December, at Ironwood State Prison near Blythe in Riverside County, agents arrested Correctional Officer Richard Melendez, 28. In July, another San Quentin cook, Daniel O'Callaghan, 27, was arrested when he allegedly tried to smuggle methamphetamine into the prison. In May, agents arrested Correctional Officer Michael Laurin, 54, at the California State Prison, Sacramento -- also known as New Folsom. Laurin allegedly bought a pound of marijuana from inmates' relatives who were working undercover for agents. State officials have begun a pilot project to crack down on drug smuggling at two institutions: California State Prison, Solano (in Vacaville) and the Central California Women's facility in Chowchilla. Guard dogs and high-tech equipment such as ion detectors that can detect small traces of narcotics are being used to screen visitors and inmates. Inmates and new prison employees are being subjected to random searches and random drug testing. A collective bargaining agreement forbids random drug tests of existing staff. In addition, the prison system is expanding its substance abuse program -- with plans to add 2,000 drug treatment beds in the prisons and 1,000 beds in residential treatment centers. There are now 3,000 drug treatment beds in the prisons. Early results show that the program improves the recidivism rate of parolees and also helps reduce drug usage inside prison. Internal affairs began investigating Reynolds in July at the request of Arthur Calderon, San Quentin's warden. A prison official had overhead inmates discussing how the female prison guard was supplying drugs to the ``415'' gang, which is composed of inmates from the Bay Area. An informant also told officials that inmate Navarro Van Hook was dealing heroin that he received from prison employees. Van Hook was paroled as scheduled on January 2 in return for his informing on Reynolds. His wife, Earline Whitmore, who arranged for Reynolds to bring ``black tar'' heroin into the prison, received immunity from prosecution in return for her testimony. Agents used Whitmore to set up a meeting with Reynolds, who allegedly agreed to smuggle a shipment of heroin in return for $500. Reynolds and Clay were arrested November 22 at a gas station in Richmond after an agent wearing a body wire gave them 22 grams of heroin to smuggle into San Quentin. The next evening, Coleman was arrested after Whitmore lured him to a shopping mall in Richmond, where an undercover agent provided him with an ounce of cocaine to smuggle into the prison. Coleman told agents that he had smuggled drugs on three prior occasions to the prison's main kitchen, where Van Hook worked as an inmate in the sandwich room. Investigators described Van Hook as a ``middle manager'' in the drug ring. An ounce of cocaine, worth $2,000 wholesale, could be cut with baking soda in the kitchen, then distributed on the prison yard, they said.

NYC Cop Faces Murder Trial

By LARRY McSHANE=

AP National Writer=

NEW YORK (AP) _ It was no surprise when Hessy Phelan died too young, a police officer's bullet in his head. He had once belonged to a violent Irish Republican Army splinter group. Arrests for rioting and hijacking landed him in Northern Ireland's jails for most of a decade. But Phelan, 39, did not die a martyr; he did not even die in his beloved homeland. Nine years after fleeing the ``Troubles,'' a drunken Hessy Phelan was killed by an off-duty New York City cop, authorities charge _ shot point-blank in the face, Jan. 21, 1996. The cop tells a different tale: The 5-foot, 100-pound Irishman killed himself after a day-long drinking binge. Officer Richard Molloy says the tiny, drunken man snatched his gun and committed suicide. On Feb. 22, three years after the bullet from his .38 caliber weapon killed Hessy Phelan, Molloy goes on trial for murder. He says he fears the verdict might be moot, believing the dead man's IRA pals plan their own justice. Phelan's family and friends call Molloy a liar. The happy-go-lucky Phelan was not suicidal, they say, but planning a reunion with an old roommate. And it was no surprise, they charge, that Molloy wound up killing an innocent man. Molloy, a second-generation cop assigned to the Bronx, amassed 74 commendations and more than 400 arrests over an 11-year career. But there were allegations of brutality and two lawsuits against him, including a pending $18 million assault case. ``I'd been hearing about Molloy in the neighborhood,'' recalls Graham Friel, co-owner of the Oak Bar in Bainbridge, a heavily Irish enclave in the Bronx, where Phelan downed his last drink. ``A lot more came to light after the (Phelan) shooting.'' The elfin Phelan was ``very much a local character,'' says New York attorney Martin Galvin, a veteran supporter of republican causes. ``He was involved in supporting political prisoners.'' No surprise there: Phelan was once among their ranks. Patrick Heslin Phelan grew up one of five children in Londonderry, a militant IRA outpost and the site of 1972's ``Bloody Sunday'' massacre. Like many other locals, he embraced the often-violent cause of Irish nationalism, joining the Irish National Liberation Army. A botched car-jacking in 1977 nearly killed him; Phelan dodged bullets as a cohort died on a Londonderry street. Over the next 10 years, Phelan was in and out of British jails, once attempting escape by squeezing his diminutive frame inside a prison pool table. He grew tight with the IRA brethren during their time behind bars. Released in 1987, Phelan moved to the United States and lived with his sister in Connecticut before relocating to the Bronx. ``He was here one week and he said, `I'm not going back to 'Derry,''' recalls his sister, Martina Boback, her voice choked with emotion. ``There was no way he was getting involved with the `Troubles' again.'' Phelan took a job as a house painter and started anew. ``He didn't talk much about the past,'' says his roommate of five years, Brian Brolly. ``He just got on with his life.'' Phelan's supporters don't paint him as a saint; he liked his liquor a bit too much, and a few drinks turned his tongue sharp. But they can't imagine what words could have caused his death that night at the Oak Bar. Molloy's girlfriend, barmaid Maggie McGrath, had grown tired of Phelan's drunken prattle. She asked Molloy to toss Phelan out, and the cop steered him into McGrath's nearby apartment. The three had a history: McGrath had previously dated a Phelan pal named Barney Logue, taking up with Molloy after Logue's death. Phelan did not look kindly on her new relationship. According to Molloy, the drunken Phelan began throwing up in McGrath's apartment _ and yet, at some point, was still able to steal the cop's gun. Phelan jammed the weapon against his left eye and fired, Molloy said, telling investigators that it was a suicide. But the medical examiner determined the bullet's angle made the officer's version improbable. A different scenario now surfaced: Phelan taunting Molloy until the infuriated cop, bent on shutting him up, fired a single gunshot. The new story gained believers after a third man in the apartment, Cormac Lee, spoke with authorities. Lee said he walked in from the kitchen to see Phelan dying and Molloy's hand returning from the back of his pants. It appeared, Lee said, that Molloy had just returned his weapon to his waistband. ``You saw nothing,'' Molloy allegedly announced. Defense attorney George Vallario dismisses the autopsy and Lee's tale, claiming the prosecution is being driven by pressure from Phelan's family and the local Irish community. ``What is Richie's reason for killing this guy?'' Vallario asks. ``He had nothing against this guy. Hessy Phelan was just a poor soul.'' Others disagree. ``You think a little drunken man can take a gun off a big sober cop?'' bar-owner Friel asks. ``That's what swayed me.'' The evidence that could have quickly cleared Molloy was botched by police: Phelan's hands were never bagged and checked for gunpowder residue, Vallario says. And the lawyer insists stories of Phelan's good spirits are exaggerated. Phelan was depressed by the recent deaths of his father, uncle and best friend and was resigned to a life away from Ireland, the lawyer says. He was drinking heavily. In the end, Phelan's death caused many involved to revisit the ``Troubles'' that he'd so eagerly left behind. The initial suicide ruling, coupled with a nine-month delay in the indictment, conjured up parallels to British injustices. ``There are cases where people get shot by British troopers and some sort of whitewash goes on,'' Galvin explained. ``For the family and for the Irish community here, that was deeply felt.'' Preliminary hearings were held in a courtroom divided; the hatred inside was palpable, Vallario says. Phelan's mother twice made the trip from Ireland, and other friends and relatives stared down Molloy and his backers. Vallario insists the IRA threats are real, that Molloy has already been the target of vandalism and hang-up phone calls. Married to Maggie McGrath last year, Molloy now has more to lose: the couple had a son in January. ``That's our biggest fear,'' the lawyer said. ``These are not playboys. These guys mean business.'' Brolly, Phelan's old roommate, abandoned the Bronx for sunny Florida. ;;One day after receiving word of Hessy's death, he received something else _ a letter from Phelan, mailed several days earlier. ``It was all about how he was looking forward to my coming out to stay with him,'' Brolly recalls. ``The very next day it came. The next day. Reading this letter, it was weird. ``He didn't sound suicidal to me.''

Federal prison guard charged with sex acts

with inmates

BOB EGELKO, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, February 18, 1999

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A guard has been charged with 17 counts of sexual conduct with female inmates at the federal prison in nearby Dublin, which has been hit by repeated accusations of sexual abuse. Jon C. Hyson, 38, of San Jose, a former guard at the Federal Correctional Institution, was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on 16 charges of sexual contact and another charge of attempted sexual contact, all misdemeanors. He was also charged with five felonies: lying to federal agents about sexual acts and other conduct. In a separate case last March, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons agreed to pay $500,000 to three women at the same prison who said guards put them in a men's prison unit in 1995 and arranged for male prisoners to rape them. Prison officials did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in that case but agreed to strengthen rules against sexual assault and harassment at all federal prisons and increase medical and psychiatric care for victims. No one was prosecuted or forced to resign, Geri Lynn Green, a lawyer for the three women, said Thursday. Though Hyson was not involved in the case, she said his prosecution was a sign that ``the U.S. attorney's office is finally taking the matter of sexual abuse at Dublin seriously enough to file charges.'' Carleen Arlidge, Hyson's lawyer, said she was ``surprised and disappointed'' that the federal prosecutor's office had announced the charges in a news release. Noting that an indictment did not prove guilt, she said, ``We look forward to addressing the charges in court.'' Two other Dublin prison employees have been prosecuted for sexual conduct with female inmates in the last two years, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Jacobs. He said a trade instructor was sentenced to five months in jail and five months of home detention in 1997 for six counts of consensual sex, and a male guard got 18 months' probation last October for one count of oral sex. Hyson's indictment, released Thursday by U.S. Attorney Robert Mueller's office, said the illegal sexual conduct occurred at the prison and an adjoining prison camp on different occasions between last April and December. The indictment specified only two sex acts, intentionally touching a prisoner's breast, and did not describe the others. The charges are only misdemeanors, punishable by six months or a year in jail, because no forcible acts were alleged. One of the felony charges, punishable by up to five years in prison, involves Hyson's questioning by FBI agents in February 1994. He is accused of lying when he denied having sexual contact with any prisoner; denied being alone in a room with two female prisoners in September 1992, and denied asking them to perform sex acts with each other. The grand jury said Hyson received oral sex from a female prisoner in about September 1992; he was not charged with a separate crime for that, however, as the legal deadline has expired. Mueller's news release did not say why Hyson was not charged after his 1994 interrogation or why the investigation was apparently reopened last year. Hyson was also accused of lying last December, to an agent of the Justice Department's Inspector General, by denying sexual acts with several inmates and denying that he had brought ``any contraband ... like perfume, makeup or hair dye'' to a particular prisoner. Arlidge, Hyson's lawyer, declined to say how long Hyson worked for the Bureau of Prisons or give any other information about him. Dominic Gutierrez, executive assistant to the prison warden, said he could not release any information except Hyson's salary range as a senior officer specialist, $34,900 to $44,000 a year. ``We do take a zero tolerance on any type of abuse of inmates,'' Gutierrez said.

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