PRISON PROBE TAKES FATAL TURN

TALLAHASSEE - A prison guard who shot and killed a federal agent after
the FBI tried to arrest him and five other guards Wednesday morning
had been cooperating with officials investigating wrongdoings at the
prison, his attorney said.

The FBI arrived at Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution about
7:30 a.m. to arrest the guards, who were accused of trading alcohol
and drugs for sex with female inmates since March 2002.

The exchange of gunfire at 7:42 a.m. left two dead, guard Ralph Hill
and William "Buddy" Sentner, an agent from the Justice Department's
office of the inspector general, the FBI said.

A prison employee helping with the arrests was hospitalized with
gunshot wounds but was expected to fully recover. Authorities had not
identified him, pending notification of his family.

Hill used a personal weapon and opened fire trying to escape from the
building, authorities said.

Guards are prohibited from bringing personal weapons into prison
facilities, but they are not screened as visitors are, federal Bureau
of Prisons spokeswoman Carla Wilson said.

R. Timothy Jansen, a Tallahassee lawyer, said he had been representing
Hill since November and that Hill voluntarily had provided a DNA
saliva sample to the FBI.

Jansen said he was surprised at his client's involvement in the
shootout.

"I was shocked. I don't understand the circumstances of how it took
place," he said, even though the basic story was sadly familiar to
him.

Jansen, a former federal prosecutor, said the problem of guards having
sex with inmates has been a major one at the institution. "I can't
tell you how many [guards] I've represented in this area. A lot," he
said.

Sentner, 44, who was based in Orlando, was a 15-year law enforcement
veteran and a former Secret Service agent.

Hill, 43, was an Air Force veteran who had worked at the prison for
more than 10 years, Jansen said.

Hill had not been terminated or suspended from his job, Jansen said,
adding that he felt Hill would have voluntarily turned himself in if
authorities had requested it.

FBI Special Agent Michael Folmar said none of the six guards was
warned the arrests were coming.

The guards were indicted by a grand jury on charges alleging, among
other things, that they exchanged contraband for sex and used it to
buy inmates' silence.

The grand jury indictment states that the six defendants also brought
contraband into the prison to bribe inmates to keep silent about
violations of prison regulations. Inmates, their family members and
others paid the correctional officers by mail, wire transmission and
hand delivery, the indictment states.

The defendants discouraged inmates from reporting the scheme by
threatening to plant contraband among inmates' belongings and
threatening to have inmates transferred to other facilities that were
farther from their families, according to the indictment, and the
guards showed inmates information about themselves and other prisoners
on the prison's computer system to prove their threats were real. It
said the guards switched duty assignments to arrange trysts with the
female inmates.

The other guards in the indictment were Alfred Barnes, Gregory Dixon,
Vincent Johnson, Alan Moore and E. Lavon Spense. The five were in
custody and expected to be kept in a facility outside Tallahassee, law
enforcement officials said. If convicted, the guards could face up to
20 years in prison.

The five pleaded not guilty in federal court and are scheduled for a
detention hearing today, said Alan Sprowls, a spokesman for the U.S.
attorney's office. Trial is set for Aug. 21.

A woman who answered the front door Wednesday's at Hill's home in a
well-kept neighborhood in the eastern part of Tallahassee had little
to say.

"We don't want to talk now, and we never will want to talk," she
said.

The prison where the shooting happened is on Capitol Circle, a busy
commuter road that normally is packed with traffic each morning.
Convenience stores and many other businesses are about 100 yards away
from the prison entrance, where officials said the shooting took place.

Mark Rayboun was just starting work at a construction supply store
across the street when he heard a series of shots, "and then a swarm
of people" responded, he said.

Officials shut down the prison after the incident, preventing trucks
from making normal deliveries and even stopping phone calls in and out
of the facility, said a woman whose husband works there.

The facility houses mostly men and is part of the Tallahassee Federal
Correctional Institution. A low-security prison for female inmates is
next to the men's detention center. Together the men's and women's
units house 1,445 inmates.