FORMER WARDEN RECOUNTS ABUSES IN FLORIDA PRISONS

The National Commission Hears Allegations Of Beatings And Sexual
Assaults In Prisons In Florida And Elsewhere.

TAMPA - "Goon squads" of guards roam Florida's prisons, beat up
inmates and enforce vigilante justice while the top brass turns a
blind eye, a former state Department of Corrections warden told a
commission on Tuesday.

And many others among 2.2-million incarcerated Americans suffer such
abuses as rape, unneeded strip-searches and inadequate medical care,
members of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons
were told Tuesday in Tampa.

This slew of abuse "doesn't fit with the core values of our democratic
society and therefore, should trouble all Americans," said commission
co-chairman John J. Gibbons, former chief judge of the 3rd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Everyone in society suffers" because of such abuses, said former U.S.
Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, another co-chairman.

This nationwide commission is a privately organized but high-profile
group whose members include former FBI director William S. Sessions;
Iowa Deparment of Corrections director Gary Maynard; and former
Arizona death row inmate Ray Krone, who was exonerated based on DNA
evidence. The commission is supported by a consortium of foundations
and law firms, and uses the staff of the Vera Institute for Justice,
based in New York.

The commission plans four sets of hearings around the country; Tampa's
is the first. The two-day hearing continues from 9:15 a.m. to 1:15
p.m. today at the offices of WEDU-TV, 1300 N Boulevard, Tampa.

Commission members made a point to say corrections officers generally
are professional and honest. As the commission studies problems in
jails and prisons, "we aim to work closely with corrections
professionals every step of the way," Katzenbach said.

But before long Tuesday, commissioners were listening to stories of
what has gone seriously wrong in some prisons and jails.

Ron McAndrew, who served as warden at Florida State Prison and two
others, said his 23-year career showed him prisoner abuse in the state
Department of Corrections "was systematically chronic. The large
prisons were plagued with "goon squads' that were well known to, and
feared by, staff and prisoners."

McAndrew also said that as he prepared to leave Florida State Prison
in 1998, he warned incoming warden James Crosby about a "goon squad"
at the prison that was so violent toward inmates he feared "it would
only be a matter of time before a prisoner would be killed."

But he says his warnings went unheeded, and inmate Frank Valdes was
killed by a squad of officers who entered his cell in July 1999 in a
highly publicized case that led to the indictment of several guards on
second-degree murder charges. Some of the guards were acquitted at
trial and prosecutors dropped charges against the rest.

Since then, Crosby has become DOC secretary.

"Ron McAndrew has been using every avenue available for the last six
years to discredit the reputation of Secretary Crosby, and his
baseless allegations do not dignify a response from this agency or
from the secretary himself," said DOC spokesman Sterling Ivey.

McAndrew, who is 66 and retired from the prison system, was one of
several witnesses who testified Tuesday before the committee, which
has much wider scope than Florida's prisons. The 21 commissioners say
they are on a mission to study and prevent abuses in the nation's prisons.

Even as they noted the professionalism of most in the corrections
business, they said abuses in prisons and jails keep recurring. "We
don't know why well-meaning officials sometimes do awful things,"
Katzenbach said.

On Tuesday, the commissioners heard some examples. Among
them:

Garrett Cunningham told commissioners he was raped by a guard in a
Texas prison and that when he later complained, authorities brushed
his complaints aside. The officer later was charged in an alleged
assault on another inmate, and agreed to a plea deal that will keep
him out of prison. Cunningham, 33, was released from prison about a
year ago. He has begun a prisoner support organization.

Jeffrey Scott Hornoff, a former Rhode Island police detective, was
convicted of murder and spent six years in prison, but was later
cleared after another man confessed to the crime. He said he endured
constant humiliation from guards - he refuses to use the term
"correctional officers." He said he frequently heard inmates being
beaten by guards in solitary confinement. Hornoff, 42, is trying to be
reinstated at the police department where he once worked and carries a
business card that lists his professional history: "Detective,
convicted murderer, exoneree, speaker & advocate."

Judith Haney told commissioners that after she was arrested during the
2003 free trade agreement protests in Miami, she was forced to strip
and consent to an invasive search. Female inmates at the time were
routinely strip-searched in Miami-Dade, in spite of state law that
says such searches can be done only in certain cases, and despite that
male inmates arrested on similar charges were not. Haney, 51, of
Oakland, Calif., was among those filing a class-action lawsuit over
the searches. Miami-Dade County settled the case this week for
$4.5-million and a promise to end the practice.

Times Researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.