| Updated: 8/13/2009 8:35 am |
Published: 8/12/2009 5:27 pm |
By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A former chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas faces felony charges accusing her of smuggling a knife and 48 tattoo needles onto the state's death row.
The charging of Betsey Wright, 66, of Rogers, Ark., comes as The Associated Press obtained documents showing death-row inmate passed love letters and contraband to a guard he committed a sex act with.
Combined, they represent just the latest in a series of high-profile incidents at the state prison system, ranging from two convicted murderers escaping in guard uniforms to a man being shot to death at a contraband checkpoint.
Wright, a longtime visitor to death row at the state's Varner Unit, was arrested May 22 after a guard noticed a knife mixed in with her materials at an X-ray machine, an Arkansas State Police report shows. Inside a bag of Doritos, the guard found 48 tattoo needles, the report claims.
Wright also had a box cutter and tweezers, the report claims. In an interview with the AP, Wright denied the charges against her.
"They think it's me, but it's not," Wright said. "I certainly did not do what they have charged me with."
The State Police report shows Wright claimed she found the bag lying in the bottom of a vending machine at the prison and told guards, "I guess you don't get nothing free."
Prosecutors filed the 51 charges Tuesday against Wright, a vocal death penalty opponent who served as Clinton's chief of staff.
Clinton presided over four executions as governor. Dina Tyler, a prison spokeswoman, said homemade tattoos represent one of the fastest ways to spread hepatitis.
"Inside of a prison, not only could (tattoo needles) potentially be a weapon, but they most definitely can be a health hazard," Tyler said.
Meanwhile, a state Freedom of Information Act request by the AP uncovered details of the firing of Varner Unit guard Danita Williams in July. A letter by the warden claimed she helped the unnamed inmate trade crackers in a laundry bag for soup from another prisoner. However, an internal investigation uncovered allegations that a romantic relationship between Williams and the inmate began at least in April as she guarded him during the graveyard shift.
An anonymous letter reached chief prison deputy director Ray Hobbs on May 29 and another, more detailed letter surfaced in June, alleging Williams had an inappropriate relationship with the inmate, the internal report reads.
The second letter claimed the death-row inmate performed a sex act with Williams during the April 28 night shift.
The detailed letter alleged other guards delivered love letters from the inmate to Williams, that Williams personally delivered a package to him and that she ferried a pillow case carrying goods from the commissary for the inmate, the report reads. The anonymous tipster also told officials that surveillance camera footage would confirm the allegations.
The internal affairs report by prison investigator Ronald Vilches shows a prison lieutenant noticed Williams' request to guard the inmate's area April 23. Vilches wrote that Williams "went straight" to the inmate's cell. The lieutenant also said
Williams admitted passing the laundry bag full of goods to another inmate.
During the investigation, Vilches wrote that another official told him Williams already was subject to disciplinary action over passing goods among inmates. However, Vilches said he found no paper record of any action; instead she apparently received only a verbal reprimand.
"Both this investigator and (Warden Grant) Harris were amazed since trafficking and trading carries a punishment of termination," Vilches wrote in his report. Harris fired Williams on July 7.
"When I asked you if this constituted 'trafficking and trading' you stated that it did," Harris wrote in Williams' termination letter. "I then asked you why you would engage in such behavior and you had no response."
A telephone number for Williams could not be found Wednesday. Prison officials redacted Williams' address and hometown from the discipline reports.
Security on death row has been a problem in the past. In 1995, when the state's Tucker Unit held death-row inmates, an Arkansas State Police investigation found a massive smuggling operation.
State troopers found contraband including a priest's cassock, weapons, gunpowder, syringes and a greeting card with marijuana leaves on it. The investigation began after the discovery of a hole between two cells, which an inmate allegedly used to sexually assault another inmate.
Prison officials moved death row to a maximum-security lockup at the Varner Unit in 2003.
Forty men await lethal injection for killings dating as far back as 1989. The state's death chamber remains nearby at the Cummins Unit.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
