Ex-Prison Employees Plead Not Guilty

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

LONDON — Three former employees of the federal prison in Martin County who were indicted in May on federal civil rights violations pleaded not guilty to a superseding indictment last Wednesday.

Samuel J. Patrick, 41, of West Van Lear; Clinton L. Pauley, 40, of Ironton, Ohio; and Kevin C. Pearce Jr., 37, of Inez, entered not-guilty pleas to violating an individual’s right under the color of law and falsifying records to impede an investigation at the United States Penitentiary Big Sandy, which were contained in a superseding indictment returned Oct. 6.

The three ex-employees were charged in an indictment returned in May with civil rights violations. The indictment alleges that on April 29, 2021, Patrick and Pauley assaulted an inmate in the lieutenant’s office of the United States Penitentiary Big Sandy in Inez. After Pearce and a subordinate Bureau of Prisons employee witnessed the assault, Pearce asked the employee to write an untruthful report, omitting the assault, the release said. The indictment also alleges that Patrick pressured the employee to submit to Pearce’s demand.

In addition, the indictment alleges that Pearce wrote a memorandum that documented the false account of the officers’ interactions with the inmate who was assaulted, stating that another employee was present in the office with the victim and that the victim left the office without incident, omitting the assault. Patrick and Pauley are also alleged to have written memos to cover up the assault.

The indictment further alleges that Pauley previously assaulted another inmate on March 26, 2021, while the prisoner was being escorted away from the lieutenants’ office and that he subsequently wrote a false incident report to cover up that assault.

The superseding indictment returned Thursday claims that the three former employees “engaged in a course of assaultive conduct” on March 21, 2021, when Patrick sprayed another inmate with aerosol spray, Pauley punched and kicked the inmate, and Pearce pushed and shot the inmate with a.68-caliber oleoresin capsicum (OC) launching dispenser.

The new indictment also says that Patrick and Pearce pressured another employee to write a false report about the incident. Patrick, Pauley and Pearce also wrote false reports about the assault, the indictment says.

In addition, Pauley made “materially false statements and representations” to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General and the FBI concerning the incident, according to the superseding indictment.