INMATE WHO WROTE CRITICAL LETTERS MOVED

TALLAHASSEE -- A convicted marijuana smuggler serving time in Florida was
moved over the weekend from a low-security work camp to a high-security
lockup amid accusations that he used the prison's computer to write letters
to The Herald and other newspapers.

In those letters, inmate Gary Brooks Waid, 49, joined the chorus of
prisoners accusing guards of brutality. And in the tense atmosphere
following the fatal beating of Death Row prisoner Frank Valdez, Waid's
charges are being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement
and his temporary transfer has drawn intense scrutiny.

Late Monday, Waid was back at the work camp with other white-collar
criminals, away from the killers and rapists down the road at Florida State
Prison -- the place where Valdez died a month ago after a confrontation
with guards. Waid's brief journey speaks volumes about the climate in the
Florida prison system since Valdez died.

Shortly after Waid was moved last Friday, his lawyer was demanding
explanations, and a friend, Kay "Grandma" Lee of Key West, was sending
urgent e-mail messages to Florida newspapers and to inmates-rights groups
around the country, pleading with them to take up Waid's cause.

Prison officials took pains Monday to describe Waid's three-day transfer to
the closest prison as a necessary move while they looked into charges of
misuse of state property -- a computer in the work camp law library.

"He is not a security risk at the moment. We're moving him back to O Unit,"
said Florida State Prison Warden James Crosby, using prison jargon for the
work camp. "We wanted him separated from any access to the computer until
we could have someone go through the computer and check it. We have
everything he had on the computer. We had to remove him over the weekend
until we could get an expert to look at it."

Letter Not Typical

Prisoners' letters to the outside often are written in painstakingly
precise handwriting, a reflection of the amount of time inmates have.

Not Waid's.

His three-page letter to The Herald on July 28 is neatly typewritten and
articulately phrased, with key words italicized for emphasis. Describing
himself as an apprentice law clerk, Waid said that since Valdez's death,
"more and more inmates are coming to me to help them with their affidavits."

"They don't like a prisoner who's able to articulate himself," said Waid's
lawyer, Donald Cohn of Miami. "He's one of the people they don't like
because he's exercising the rights he has. This was, in effect, a form of
punishment that was given to Gary because he's not the kind of inmate you
normally get."

Waid, formerly of Merritt Island on Florida's Space Coast, was convicted
four years ago of conspiring to smuggle two tons of marijuana on a fishing
trawler from Jamaica to Florida over several years. He got a nine-year
sentence in a federal prison and wasn't supposed to be in state custody in
the first place.

He was one of about 30 minimum-security federal prisoners swapped last
November for 30 violent state offenders, many of them murderers who came to
the United States during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift. The prisoner swap had
been advocated by state officials.

Record Defended

His lawyer says Waid had an unblemished record while in federal custody and
that he'd probably be in a halfway house by now if he hadn't been
transferred to Florida State Prison's work camp last November.

"We're now in the process of doing whatever we can to get him out of there
and get him back into federal custody," Cohn said. "He was in the worst
place they could have put him."

Corrections spokesman C.J. Drake said some e-mails on Waid's behalf came
from people involved in efforts to legalize marijuana use. But he said
Waid's transfer back to the camp was not a result of any complaints made by
Waid's supporters on the outside.

"There's a heightened sense of awareness by prison management when it comes
to conducting internal investigations," Drake said. "The Valdez incident
has created an environment in which prisoners feel they have a forum to
rehash allegations against the prison system."

Waid's Internet home page, set up by his friend, Kay Lee, is entitled "A
smuggler's tales from jails." On it, Waid describes Florida's prisons as
"factories of hate and violence." A biography written by his brother says
Waid was a promising musician -- a onetime professional trombonist with the
Florida Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra who got into shrimping and from there
"became enticed into the marijuana trade."