Gov. Justice says jail probe found no evidence of inhumane treatment

Apr. 29—After nearly a month-long investigation into conditions at Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety officials have found that inmates have adequate access to clean water and food, clothing, mattresses and medical care.

Gov. Jim Justice ordered West Virginia Homeland Security Secretary Jeff Sandy to lead the investigation on March 30 after veteran WVVA reporter Annie Moore published a report by a current corrections guard and a former corrections guard that they had witnessed inmates drinking from the toilet.

In a 14-page report, state investigators said that both guards and inmates had made false statements to media and ruled that the allegations of water deprivation, failure to provide toilet paper, and inmates having to sleep on hard floors without a mattress were false.

"These were incredibly serious allegations, so I instructed our people at DHS to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible," Gov. Jim Justice said. "Our investigators talked with a bunch of people and pulled a bunch of records and, at the end of the day, they determined that the allegations were simply not true."

The official investigation was narrow in scope and did not address recent inmate deaths and allegations of abuse by family members of Steve Robinson, Quantez Burks and Richard Wriston, all inmates who have died or become fatally ill at the jail since September.

State investigators ruled that one of the Southern Regional guards had falsely reported to media that he had witnessed prisoners drinking from a toilet. According to the report, the guard told state officials that he had worked 100 hours that week and that he had not yet had a required training when he made the report.

State officials noted the guard told them that media had not published his entire interview.

A former guard, Scott Moore of Beckley, had also reported to WVVA and The Register-Herald that he had witnessed prisoners drinking from toilets and that he had seen guards beating inmates.

State investigators alleged that Moore, who is identified in one section of the report, was bitter about his employment when he left and that he would not admit to investigators that prisoners were given water, milk and/or juice with their dinners as is customary.

Of all of the guards and inmates interviewed for the report, Moore was the only person identified by name. The report lists two days, March 30 and April 5, that investigators were in Southern Regional.

Moore's attorney, Robert Dunlap of Beckley, responded to the report on Thursday evening.

"With respect to statements from anyone that Mr. Moore is untruthful or bitter, I would remind the declarant that they are not someone who actually worked at Southern Regional Jail," Dunlap said. "They have not watched the employees and inmates function daily, in abhorrent conditions, and they should also consider that they may not be someone who knows what really went on at Southern Regional during Mr. Moore's employment.

"Finally, such a declarant might also want to temper any public and prelitigation statements, of a defamatory nature, until they have had an opportunity to seek advice from counsel," Dunlap said.

"Far too many individuals working at the Southern Regional Jail and being held at Southern Regional Jail have told stories with such striking similarities that they simply cannot be summarily dismissed."

Investigators reported that inmates receive adequate water, with the state spending nearly $14,000 in bottled water in the past fiscal year.

State investigators reported that prisoners may also ask an inmate in another cell to give them water in a cup the jail provides and that all prisoners may access a fountain in their POD "24/7," even when inmates have vandalized sinks in their cells.

Paula Matney, a pre-trial prisoner who was at the jail during the state investigation of Southern Regional, said on April 16 that prisoners who were under quarantine were not free to leave their cells to get water from a fountain.

Matney reported that she had witnessed a woman in the quarantine POD drinking from a toilet one time. Matney said the sink was broken when jail staff assigned inmates to the cell.

She reported that the jail abruptly ended the quarantine practice while investigators were present, with guards suddenly announcing that "quarantine is over."

Sandy said state investigators, after interviewing over 50 individuals, determined that some of the inmates at Southern Regional made false statements about the jail conditions and that one prisoner had apparently instructed a girlfriend to lie to media, in an interview, based on a phone conversation between the inmate and his girlfriend.

"The sad part of this investigation is that family members are repeatedly lied to by inmates about their access to clothing, food, water, mattresses, medical attention, living conditions, even shoes," Sandy said in a press release from Gov. Jim Justice's office.

"One mother that we interviewed was told by her own child, an inmate, that their shoes were stolen and weren't given replacement shoes to wear, so she deposited money into their account for shoes that were never purchased."

Sandy, a former Wood County sheriff and well-known veteran and military financial investigator, was chair of the Regional Jail Board from 2012 to 2016 when Gov. Jim Justice appointed him to lead WVMAPS.

Reuters news service reported in 2020 that, between 2009 and 2019, people in West Virginia jails died at a 50 percent higher rate among 45 jurisdictions surveyed, giving West Virginia the highest percentage of prisoner deaths in a state jail.

From 2009 to 2019, 111 inmates died in the state's 10 regional jails, with more than a third being caused by a medical condition or illness. A quarter were caused by suicide, Reuters found.

Matney expressed concern for those inmates who have mental health issues. She said male and female guards force prisoners who have panic attacks, make excessive requests or threaten suicide to strip naked in the presence of other prisoners and to be forced into a "pickle suit" restraint.

Matney alleged that the guards then order those in "pickle suits" to lie together on foam pads in a cell near the entrance to the jail, where they may be supervised by staff but are also visible to all entering the jail.

"What I could never understand was how that was going to keep somebody from not wanting to kill themselves," Matney said.

According to the Reuters report, death rates in recent years were higher at facilities where health care is managed by one of the top five operators, rather than by the local government.

Reuters found that two out of three (68 percent) of the deceased inmates had died in jail before being given a trial for their charges.

Since September, at least four West Virginia prisoners — Robinson, Burks, Wriston and John Lewis Jarrell — have died.

Andrew Broadus Sampson, age 74, was arrested and jailed Nov. 7 on wanton endangerment, domestic assault and unlawful restraint charges and placed at Southern Regional. On Nov. 19, he was taken to a local hospital and placed on medical furlough and was, therefore, not in the Division of Corrections custody on Nov. 29, when he was pronounced dead, former WVMAPS spokesman Lawrence Messina reported in December.