INMATE SAYS HE LIVED IN FEAR AFTER UNVEILING PRISON DRUG RING

LAWRENCEVILLE -- Joseph Lee Garrett didn't set out to be a snitch.

But once he fell into the role, in the unforgiving world of prison culture
he was a marked man for life.

Death threats. An emergency transfer in the middle of the night. Suicide
attempts. Months in solitary confinement. A frame-up.

It's been a rocky ride for the self-proclaimed nonviolent inmate who says
he's only done what he had to do to survive prison.

It all started with a mugging.

In early 1996 at Greensville Correctional Center, Garrett says, a prison
guard who moonlighted as a "mule" -- a runner in a guard-run drug ring --
was beaten and robbed of $3,500 and 4 ounces of marijuana by a group of
inmates.

Garrett, who has admitted being part of the drug ring, insists he wasn't
involved in the mugging. But word went out on the prison grapevine that he was.

Garrett says a group of masked inmates approached him at knifepoint in the
recreation yard and told him that if he didn't return the missing money and
drugs, he would be killed.

A few days later, guards strip-searched Garrett and found a marijuana
cigarette, which he claimed was not his. He says one of the officers told
him, "Pay the money you stole and you'll be OK."

Garrett eventually was prosecuted and given seven extra years for possession.

Fearing for his life, he wrote prison internal affairs investigators and
offered to tell all. On the evening of April 24, two agents came to
Greensville and interrogated him for several hours.

"We were genuinely concerned for his safety," Agent R.W. Lann stated later
in an affidavit that became part of a federal lawsuit filed by Garrett.

That same night, the two internal affairs investigators and two guards
escorted Garrett, in an orange jumpsuit, a waist chain and a T-shirt over
his head, across the prison yard to a state car and whisked him away to
Deerfield Correctional Center in Southampton County.

The spectacle left little chance for anonymity. "One-Arm Joe," as Garrett
is known to fellow inmates, is easy to identify. He lost one arm in a
childhood farm accident, and his remaining arm is covered from the wrist up
with prison-applied tattoos.

Over the next two weeks Garrett was transferred twice more, finally landing
at Nottoway Correctional Center. But he couldn't outrun the inmate grapevine.

The word was out: Garrett's a snitch.

In sworn statements filed with Garrett's lawsuit, fellow prisoners at
Nottoway say they had heard death threats directed at Garrett. One of them,
George Cozino, wrote: "Correctional officers are trying to manipulate gang
members to kill Joe, which is common knowledge to everyone who knows
One-Arm Joe and his dilemma."

Garrett says internal affairs agents promised him protection in return for
the information he provided. The agents deny making any such promises.

"They used me," Garrett says, "and then threw me to the wolves."

Over the next year, Garrett says, the threats drove him to emotional
breakdown. He attempted suicide six times by overdosing on pills.

In 1998 Garrett was moved to Mecklenburg Correctional Center, notable as
the site of the nation's largest death-row breakout in 1984. There, he
found another opportunity to snitch in exchange for protection.

In a letter to the warden, Garrett warned of preparations for another
death-row escape.

The administration agreed to place him in protective custody, provided his
claims could be substantiated.

"Garrett provided information that an inmate at Mecklenburg was
manufacturing handcuff keys and selling them to the inmate population,"
according to an affidavit provided for his lawsuit by G.L. Bass, the
Department of Corrections' chief of operations. "Garrett produced a key
which opened handcuffs, both locked and double-locked."

Garrett says the keys were fashioned from metal parts taken out of
electrical adapters, the kind used with portable radios. He says he watched
them being shot into the death-row recreation cage with homemade bows and
arrows.

For his efforts, Garrett got a letter of appreciation from the warden and a
transfer to the protective-custody unit at Keen Mountain Correctional Center.

Shortly afterward, death row was moved to the new Sussex I State Prison.

But Garrett's troubles weren't over.

In February 1999 at Keen Mountain, a shakedown of Garrett's cell turned up
a "shank" -- a homemade knife -- taped underneath his door. As punishment,
Garrett spent the next nine months in segregation.

Garrett claims he was framed. A key witness against him now agrees.

Horace Worrell, 36, serving 57 years for burglary and grand larceny, has
told The Virginian-Pilot that he set Garrett up in collusion with three
Keen Mountain guards. Like Garrett, Worrell claims to have sold drugs for
guards. And, like Garrett, Worrell eventually snitched to prison internal
affairs investigators to protect himself from beatings and threats by
worried guards. Worrell was transferred last month to Red Onion State
Prison, a supermaximum-security facility.

Larry Traylor, a Department of Corrections spokesman, says the department
investigated the incident and turned its findings over to Buchanan County
Commonwealth's Attorney Sheila Tolliver. He declined to comment further
"because of possible criminal charges and/or pending litigation."

Garrett's family has been told that three Keen Mountain guards were fired
over the incident.

Tolliver has not responded to repeated telephone inquiries about the case.

Garrett is now housed at Brunswick Correctional Center, a medium-security
institution. He has been removed from the protective custody unit --
because, he says, there was fear of retaliation by guards at Keen Mountain,
where the unit is housed.

His lawsuit, which alleged a variety of civil rights violations, has been
dismissed after nearly four years of litigation.

"No one wanted to hear that there was a drug trade in prison," he says. "No
one wanted to believe it."

Garrett has a job in the prison laundry and has gotten into a substance
abuse program. He plays softball and makes gifts for his three children in
the craft shop.

But there is still no escaping his reputation.

"Everybody knows here," he says. "I catch jabs every day about it.

"I don't sleep well. I sit with my back to the wall in the chow hall every
day, always with my eyes side to side wondering if someone's going to put a
knife in my back.

"It really sucks to have all your peers say, `Hey, you're the dude that's a
snitch. You're the rat.' Of course, they've never been in that position. I
did what I felt I needed to do to stay alive."