Prisoner sues GEO Group

A prisoner who helped broker an end to a Pecos prison riot in 2008 is suing the company that runs the Reeves County Detention Center, claiming jail officials retaliated against him and violated his rights in the aftermath of the infamous riot.

Paul Ohaegbu claims GEO Group jail officials reneged on a promise that he and other prisoners involved in negotiations to resolve a hostage situation would not face prosecution. Last year, a federal grand jury indicted Ohaegbu and about two dozen of his fellow prisoners on federal riot charges.

While several of Ohaegbu’s co-defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced to additional prison time, prosecutors dropped the charges against Ohaegbu, citing “insufficient evidence.” Ohaegbu claims jail officials became angry when the charges were dropped and fabricated an incident report to “convict” Ohaegbu of disorderly conduct at a disciplinary hearing and strip him of good time and privileges.

Ohaegbu, 51, is seeking several million dollars in actual and punitive damages.

Pablo Paez, a GEO Group spokesman, declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing company policy concerning litigation. But an incident report of the riot filed into court records shows jail officials dispute Ohaegbu’s claims: “It was explained again to the inmates that there would be no retaliation for the riot but that investigation and possible prosecution for these offense would be pursued,” the report states, referring to negotiations that included Ohaegbu.

The charges against Ohaegbu stemmed from a riot involving more than 1,200 prisoners at the Pecos lockup in December 2008. Court documents show the prisoners took two guards hostage and demanded better medical attention, food and recreation.

Ohaegbu, in a 14-page lawsuit he filed on his own behalf, offers a detailed prisoner’s perspective of the chaos, attributing the uprising to the outrage sparked by the death of Jesus Manuel Galindo, a 32-year-old epileptic prisoner.

“The inmates housed in the segregation became irate and started a fire in one of the cells,” Ohaegbu said in the suit. “The general population inmates saw a body bag being removed from segregation and became aware of the death.”

Court documents show the riot began after two prisoners in a cell across from Galindo’s exposed the wires behind an electrical outlet and used them to set fire to a mattress. “It sounds like a design flaw to me, but that’s how they started it the best we can tell,” FBI agent Justin E. Fleck told a panel of 20 grand jurors last year, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Earlier this month, one of the prisoners charged with starting the fire, Alex Javier Morales Romero, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting to cause a riot. He is awaiting a sentencing hearing Sept. 30 in Pecos. His cellmate, Carlos Alberto Morales-Rojas, pleaded guilty last year to misprision of a felony — failure to report or concealing a crime — and was sentenced to time served.

Ohaegbu, for his part, denied any role in the rock throwing and vandalizing that Fleck estimated resulted in about $1 million damage to the prison during the 24-hour standoff. Rather, Ohaegbu claims he acted as an arbitrator between the Spanish-speaking inmates and the jail administration.

“Since neither the warden nor the deputy speaks Spanish, the Mexican inmates requested the assistance of plaintiff, an African inmate, to communicate their request to the Geo administrators,” the suit states. “To alleviate inmate fear, the Geo Group, Inc. warden, Dwight Sims, promised before the officials that no inmate would be retaliated for the riot.”

In November, Ohaegbu was sanctioned for “conduct that disrupts the orderly running of the institution.” According to the suit, Ohaegbu was stripped of 40 days good conduct time and 200 days of telephone and commissary privileges. The prisoner claims he also was ordered to spent 30 days in disciplinary segregation and given a “disciplinary transfer” to a federal prison in Beaumont.

Federal court papers show Ohaegbu pleaded guilty in 1992 to supplying crack cocaine to a drug ring in central Florida. He is serving the final years of a nearly 22-year sentence.