Pennsylvania prison guard is accused of sexually and physically abusing 20 inmates
Harry Nicoletti was arrested Tuesday evening in Pittsburgh
He faces 92 counts, including charges of “institutional sexual assault”

(CNN) — A Pennsylvania prison guard accused of sexually and physically abusing more than 20 inmates has been arrested, according to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office.

Harry Nicoletti, 59, was arrested Tuesday evening in Pittsburgh, and faces 92 counts of institutional sexual assault, official oppression, terroristic threats and simple assault.

According to the criminal complaint, Nicoletti is accused of targeting male inmates convicted of sex crimes, particularly those convicted of crimes against children.

The 34-page report details what authorities describe as a pattern of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse directed at the inmates.

Nicoletti allegedly raped, slapped, bribed and exposed himself to inmates in the State Criminal Institution at Pittsburgh’s “F Block.”

One inmate said that he assaulted 15 other inmates under Nicoletti’s orders and was rewarded for doing so. He did not elaborate.

Nicoletti told CNN affiliate KDKA that the allegations are false. CNN was unable to reach Nicoletti independently, and it could not be determined whether he has an attorney.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 7.

Harry Nicoletti, 59, of Coraopolis, Pa., was arraigned Tuesday night and held in the Allegheny County Jail on $75,000 bond.

He is charged with 10 counts of institutional sexual assault, two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, 27 counts of official oppression, 13 counts of criminal solicitation, eight counts of indecent assault, six counts of indecent exposure, multiple counts of simple assault and terroristic threats and one count of criminal attempt.

The charges date to early 2009 and include allegations ranging from slapping inmates with an open hand, to forcing their heads into toilets and repeatedly flushing them, to having other inmates urinate in the food of convicted sex offenders, to rape and forced oral sex.

In some instances, Nicoletti rewarded inmates who committed violations on his behalf, the complaint said.

The ongoing investigation into abuse at SCI Pittsburgh — with 1,769 inmates — began in late 2010, said Susan McNaughton, a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

The department’s Office of Special Investigations and Intelligence then joined with the Allegheny County district attorney’s office several months ago. The county also presented testimony to an investigating grand jury.

Nicoletti, a corrections department employee since November 2001, was suspended without pay Jan. 5.

According to the 34-page criminal complaint, Nicoletti — assigned to the 2 to 10 p.m. shift on prison’s reception unit — primarily targeted inmates who had been convicted of sex crimes against children or those who were gay or transgender.

The most serious allegations charge Nicoletti with raping a transgender inmate twice and attempting to use a broom to sodomize a mentally challenged inmate who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a child.

Six inmates, unidentified in the complaint, are characterized as victims of some form of sexual assault. Sixteen additional inmates are named as victims.

One inmate “stated that new inmate arrivals convicted of sex offenses involving children were sought out and abused by the defendant.”

One inmate, convicted of murder, said he physically assaulted more than 15 other inmates at Nicoletti’s direction.

In some instances, those inmates who abused others were rewarded — sometimes with cigarettes, pizza, snuff and even prescription drugs such as Vicodin.

Seven other corrections officers were suspended in April, McNaughton said, and SCI Pittsburgh’s leadership team was changed in May.

Just days before the criminal charges were brought against Nicoletti, a federal lawsuit was filed naming him and seven other corrections officers and the Corrections Department, alleging a “common plan and conspiracy to sexually abuse, physically abuse and mentally abuse inmates who were homosexual,” along with those who were transgender or convicted of sex crimes.

Nicoletti, in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story Friday, denied the lawsuit’s allegations. “There is no truth to any of this whatsoever,” he said.

(Contact Paula Reed Ward at pward(at)post-gazette.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com.)

Reblogged from: Restorative Justice and Circles:

As a Rotary Club, we say the pledge of allegiance.  As we stated the end, “with liberty and justice for all” I thought about these words together, “liberty” and “justice”.  I thought about if “for all”, really means, “for all”.  You have to excuse my perspective, it’s  a little biased towards restorative justice.  Sometimes I see shortcomings in the criminal justice system and the focus on the offender.  The innocent until proven …

Read more: 300 more words, 10 links, 10 images »

CURB pledges its full support

Notwithstanding, Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Collin Derrick, has recently stated that the construction of a new prison in Antigua and Barbuda is currently not a pressing priority that would require the diversion of the government resources.

Derrick, while speaking on Observer Radio yesterday, explained that it will take an estimated $20 million to build a facility to house about 500 prisoners taking into account the future expansion of the population of the country’s lone penal institution.

As an alternative, the government intends to utilise part of the lands earmarked for a prison farm to construct a facility to house up to 50 or 60 inmates who are considered to be well behaved. Such prisoners who are willing to participate in the prison rehabilitation programmes will reside at that facility thereby providing short term relief for the prison overcrowding situation.

The British government recently donated over $107,000 to the Ministry of Justice towards the upgrading of the prison farm. The monies will be spent to establish an area of horticultural production on the prison farm, to train inmates in horticultural skills, to develop animal husbandry skills and to erect a proper fence around the property.

Such a facility comes in the wake of frequent calls from Magistrates for long-term care facilities and half-way houses for offenders with mental health issues who commit crimes, often when they fail to take their prescribed medication.

The issue was highlighted last month in a UK House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee report, which mentioned a mentally ill person who had been in prison “without charge and without review” for nine years!

Director of Prisons Bill Rattray acknowledged that there were “no facilities on Cayman in terms of people who may have mental health problems who are also charged with criminal offences or convicted of criminal offences or people might be concerned that they will commit criminal offences. As opposed to being held untried, they can be remanded to a place of safety.”

Under the Mental Health Act, Northwood Prison is designated as an institution in which individuals can be remanded under a place of safety order if they are considered a danger to themselves or others. However, mentally ill inmates are often treated with scant regard and become extremely vulnerable to prison sexual and physical assault from other inmates and staff.

Dr. Marc Lockhart, a psychiatrist who has been visiting Northward Prison once a month since 2004 to review inmates with mental health issues, said that there are more and more people incarcerated that require mental health services. He said the government is considering an institution that could house between 20 and 30 individuals, as well as a number of “community homes” to which they could go after receiving intensive treatment.

The Cayman authorities have also promised to give $1 million for a juvenile detention centre which is also lacking on island and which has also been requested repeatedly by magistrates.

One prisoner who is charged with drug trafficking, appeared before Magistrate Chandra Sohan in New Amsterdam Court on Friday 8th August and claimed that he had been exposed to the disease.

Another prisoner who faces a similar drug charge was not allowed entry into the New Amsterdam courtroom as he was suspected of being afflicted. However, the inmate was kept in the holding area with other inmates.

Magistrate Sohan said the defendant’s presence would expose others to the affliction and he should not have been taken to the Court but physically isolated in order to break the chain of transmission.

Overcrowding in prisons often leads to the rampant spread of contagious illnesses among inmates, few of whom may be able to receive competent and timely medical treatment.

In October of next year, the Corrections Bureau will be severed from the Justice Department and will become an independent agency under the Office of the Governor.

Attorney General Vincent Frazer said that supervisors have been appointed temporarily at Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix and Farrelly Justice Complex and Alva Swan Annex jails on St. Thomas. Golden Grove and the St. Thomas jails both are operating under federal consent decrees.

The search continues for a new Corrections director to replace Elwood York who unexpectedly resigned last December. Frazer hopes by October he will announce the name of the new Bureau of Corrections director.

In 2006, a District Court magistrate appointed a special master in charge of rectifying conditions at Golden Grove, which has operated since 1986 under the federal consent decree requiring improvements in security, physical and mental health care, fire safety and sanitation.

The St. Thomas jail system is also undergoing court-mandated improvements, 14 years after the government reached a settlement with mentally ill inmates represented by the ACLU.

The failure of the previous prison administrators led to four contempt of court rulings in the last dozen years. In recent times, in an effort to satisfy the judge overseeing the mandated changes, the Justice Department has sent several mentally ill inmates to off-island institutions for treatment.

Noble was an inmate at the Camp Street jail facility and despite claims by some sources that he died in his cell during his sleep, a post-mortem revealed that he died of blunt force trauma to the head.

There were reports that there was a suspicious mark on his forehead and another behind his head. Hospital sources reported that they were told that the man was epileptic and may have had an attack during which he fell and hit his head. When he arrived at the hospital, blood was oozing from his nose but according to reports there were no marks of violence on the body.

Noble had been suffering from mental illness induced by drug abuse for 11 years and had had several brushes with the law, the most recent being a charge of murder. However, his younger brother has stated that the deceased never suffered from epilepsy.

Noble’s relatives are calling for a full investigation into his death due to the conflicting reports they have so far received.

Niles was allegedly found with a quantity of ammunition following a day of labour at army base Camp Ayanganna. He had been convicted for possession of cannabis on September 18, 2006, and sentenced to a three-year prison term, which would have expired on September 26 this year.

Niles had just returned from the army base when a routine search of his person prior to him re-entering the prison, turned up the ammunition. An investigation was launched to ascertain how Niles had acquired the ammunition.

It is alleged that during his interrogation by prison officers Niles was brutally assaulted. The prisoner’s body showed serious lacerations and he had a broken arm as well as burns on his back. A post-mortem examination revealed that he died from a clot in his lungs as a result of burns.

The death of Mr. Niles has raised concerns about torture of prisoners and there have been several calls for an independent inquiry into his demise.

Justice Olivetti, who with her staff recently visited Her Majesty’s Prison at Balsam Ghut, said, “At that visit, it was brought home to my mind how necessary, how pressing it is, for there to be facilities for someone who has suffered from mental illnesses.”

Mr. Callwood — who was charged with maliciously wounding a vacationing American tourist — has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He recently returned from Barbados, where he had been receiving
treatment at a long-term care facility.

The 25-year-old Callwood had a history of marijuana abuse, according to his mother, Tessa Callwood, who testified that drugs laced with other substances may have led to her son’s mental illness.

Worldwide, prisons have become the home for hundreds of persons with mental illnesses. Unfortunately, most such prisons are ill-equipped to accommodate and or rehabilitate persons suffering from mental illnesses who fail to integrate well with the inmate population.

For this and other reasons, mentally ill inmates often become the victims of various forms of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of both staff and other inmates.