Issues I experienced while incarcerated:
- Denial of access to the courts;
- Denial of necessary and proper medical treatment;
- Retaliatory placement in SHU (3 times);
- Retaliatory transfer ( one-time successful, second time unsuccessful or intentional to keep me at the edge of the 500 Mile limit);
- Planting, destruction, and Fabrication of evidence;
- Issuing false statements, failure to investigate, slanderous claims, misleading Congressional offices;
- Failure to timely respond to medical emergency ( passed out from heat exhaustion in the SHU);
- Refusal to report or treat head injury;
- Bribing, intimidation, and coercion of inmates and Witnesses;
- Conspiracy to have me assaulted in the SHU;
- Tampering, interfering with, losing and reading legal mail;
- Theft, loss and destruction of legal material;
- Publicly reading legal material to other officers and inmates;
- Threatening to tell other inmates of my charge (sex offense) and falsely telling inmates I’m a child rapist;
- Abusive searches and seizures, including sexual assault (staff member ramming his hand into my crotch during a pat-down), unnecessary strip-search, frequent targeted Pat Downs, theft, loss and destruction of personal property (over $2,000);
- Other forms of discriminatory abusive and unethical Behavior targeting me and other sex offenders.
Issues I currently face with the US Customs and Immigration Services offices:
- My petition to sponsor my wife for permanent residency was denied simply based on my charge (18 USC 2252 (a)(2));
- Under 8 USC section 1154 (a)(1)(A)(viii) USCIS is permitted unfettered administrative discretion over whether I pose a risk to the safety and welfare of my wife. This decision is the sole and unreviewable authority of the director of USCIS.
- In order to overcome this I must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that I am “no risk to the safety and Welfare” of my wife. This decision is the “sole and unreviewable discretion” of the director of USCIS. There is no standard or measure for this risk but somehow I’m supposed to overcome it, even though they neither provide nor demonstrate any actual or realistic risk to my wife;
- We have appealed the decision and provided a “no risk” assessment to USCIS but they have ignored our petitions for almost 4 years now;
- During this, USCIS has not renewed my wife’s work authorization and Advance parole so she has been unable to work, unable to go to school, unable to get a driver’s license, unable to get any kind of social support or social welfare, and has been suffering immensely. As I have been incarcerated for the past four years I’ve been unable to assist or support my wife;
- Accordingly we are also considering filing a civil suit against USCIS for my wife’s lost wages and for her suffering. My wife came to the United States in 2009 on a student visa. She had a valid student visa when we met and up through 2012 when we married and she was given work authorization and Advance parole, but USCIS has refused to renew it;
- My wife is well-educated and she was a pharmacist and in charge of a pharmacy plant’s development and testing. Since coming to the US she has obtained another bachelor’s degree and was trying to go on to her Masters and PhD. All of this she had to give up while I was incarcerated and was afraid to take any action due to ICE’s overzealous persecution of immigrants;
- I have no history of abuse or violent behavior, no substance abuse in my history, no anger management problems and nothing between me and my wife that would lead to any kind of assumption of risk. This accusation of risk is pure presumption based solely on my charge and not any conduct or behavior.
The next issue is my current stay at a halfway house.
- I am not permitted access to the courts;
- I’m not allowed access to the computers;
- I’m not allowed to go to any law libraries or public libraries;
- I’m not allowed to go to the mayor’s office for returning citizens affairs or the mayor’s office for Veterans Affairs;
- I am not allowed to have cell phone either a smartphone phone or a dumb phone (all other residents are only allowed a dumb phone bur staff ignore their having smart phones);
- I am not permitted to go and see my Congressional Representatives;
- The halfway house is discriminatorily applying my judgment and commitment order against me while I’m staying at the halfway house even though they are under the Bureau of Prisons.
- They enforce these unique burdens against me even though they allow other residents – most of whom have much higher recidivism rates with drug charges or gun charges or other conspiracy type charges – to have smartphones even though the general policy for all residents is that we can only have dumb phones;
- They take it further with me by not allowing me to go to offices like the mayor’s office, or to go to libraries where I can conduct legal research, continue my education, and do not allow me access to the computers to type my legal paperwork except under very rare circumstances where a staff member is willing to supervise me, which almost never happens;
The last issue is Probation Conditions
- I’m also filing a motion for relief regarding the probation conditions imposed by the court at sentencing;
- I was not given notice of the conditions imposed by the court at sentencing;
- I was not given notice of the conditions imposed by my state at any time;
- Many of the conditions are vague and arbitrary, and do not meet my specific circumstances;
- Almost all of the conditions were applied generically, irrespective of my background, rehabilitative efforts and, again case specific circumstances;
- Most of the conditions are overly onerous considering my recidivism rate, personal circumstances, rehabilitation and other efforts;
- As an example, at sentencing I was ordered to 10 years of probation which both council and I assumed was the registration and notification requirement under SORNA. However, I recently found out that my state has a separate requirement of a lifetime registration and, assuming I am Tier 1, only after 15 years can I request to be removed from the registry, for which there are no specific standards provided to know what I am required to overcome for removal (i.e. There are no specific goals that are to be met to ensure that one can be removed from the registry);
- Prior to being incarcerated for four years, I was released on personal recognizance for 1.5 years during which time I completed sex offender treatment, went to counseling, got medication for depression and anxiety, went to couples counseling with my wife, went to sex addicts anonymous meetings, completed a master’s program, maintained two part-time jobs, and many other activities to show my rehabilitation;
- Just before self-reporting for incarceration I completed a “no-risk” psychological psychosexual evaluation;
- Despite my pre-incarceration PO saying that I was the best probationee he had, the fact that I self-surrender to prison, that during my incarceration I continued to participate in ongoing rehabilitative training and courses, and that I had put considerable effort toward rehabilitation so when I left prison I could return to my wife to care for her, the probation office and the halfway house nevertheless refuse to allow me to focus on rehabilitation programs, re-entry efforts, advance training programs, or other reentry goals that will get me back into society and able to support my wife, and my probation officer seems unwilling to work with me on the conditions based off of my rehabilitation efforts, prior behavior under supervision by the probation office, or empirical data, such as a low recidivism risk of approximately 2.4 to 4.6% and almost no chance of committing a hands-on offense;
- For example, after sentencing I received the conditions of my probation. One of those conditions was that any computer that I worked on had to have the government monitoring software on it. I was given no opportunity to contest this and my attorney refuse to assist me in any way. I have pointed out to the probation officer that any job that I’m well-qualified for would not allow for such software to be placed on their computer and certainly would not want the government monitoring the work that the company does. Because of my physical disabilities there are many jobs I am not able to perform, and I would therefore most likely have to take an office position where access to a computer would certainly be necessary;
- As another example, my wife and I have to rent out rooms at the house that we are leasing in order to be able to pay rent. Even though my personal background, empirical evidence, and statistical data demonstrate that I am no risk to anybody, whether adults or minors, the probation officer will require me to notify any possible housemates of my offense, which will scare away almost everybody who might be otherwise interested in moving into the house;
- Even though I have completed treatment and taken a psychological evaluation demonstrating no risk, the probation officer has indicated that he may require me to take these again;
- Furthermore without my agreement or notification, the probation conditions set at sentencing also require that I give up any right to privacy regarding psychological counseling and treatment, despite the fact that any psychologist or psychiatrist is required to report any significant threats to the authorities;
- Overall, it appears to me that these probation conditions are designed to keep me from rehabilitating and from effectively re-entering society, to destroy my marriage and harm my wife, to keep us from having stable housing, and to keep me from obtaining meaningful employment commensurate with my background.or my wife. There is no standard or measure for this risk but somehow I’m supposed to overcome it, even though they neither provide nor demonstrate any actual or realistic risk to my wife;
I need to obtain legal assistance, but it seems no attorney wants to touch a civil rights case of a convicted former sex offender. If anyone has suggestions or leads it would be greatly appreciated. I assume many other former SOs are experiencing these problems. I filled a lawsuit against the BOP Pro se and am trying to make it a class action suit if anyone is interested.
Best wishes to you all!
Rick
