Folsom
March 6, 2012
Riot quelled at old Folsom Prison without serious injury
Correctional officers at Folsom State Prison today put down a wild prison melee involving up to 70 suspected gang members, firing pepper spray and non-lethal rounds to quell the riot.
No serious injuries were reported in the clash that broke out between two apparent rival gang factions. The brawl prompted correctional officers to summon reinforcements from the nearby California State Prison, Sacramento, said state Corrections department spokesman Lt. Paul Baker...
LINK - SacBee.com
February 25, 2010
Racial de-seg at Folsom prison
When news swept through Folsom State Prison that a new statewide policy was looking to break down racial barriers in individual prison cells, the response wasn’t exactly welcoming.
“Initially there was a lot of apprehension,” acknowledged Lt. Anthony Gentile, spokesman for the prison. “We were all a little skeptical” about the policy.
But since officially introducing the new prison cell integration policy on Feb. 1, the prison hasn’t experienced any significant problems, Gentile said.
So what went right?...
LINK - FolsomTelegraph.com
October 8, 2009
Gov appoints new wardens for Folsom, Salinas Valley
Michael Evans, 63, of Sacramento, has been appointed warden of Folsom State Prison. He has served the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) as warden of Salinas Valley State Prison since 2006 and was acting warden from 2004 to 2006. Evans served as chief deputy warden of the California Correctional Institution (CCI) in 2004, associate warden of the High Desert State Prison from 2000 to 2004, correctional captain with the Northern Transportation Unit, Division of Adult Institutions from 1997 to 2000 and correctional lieutenant for the Richard A. McGee Correctional Training Center from 1995 to 1997. Prior to that, he served at CDCR's Emergency Operations Unit as correctional lieutenant from 1993 to 1995 and sergeant and training coordinator from 1990 to 1993. Evans also served CCI as correctional sergeant from 1989 to 1990 and correctional officer from 1986 to 1989. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $129,108. Evans is a Republican.
Anthony Hedgpeth, 56, of Salinas, has been appointed warden of Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP). He has served the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation as acting warden of SVSP since 2008 and was warden of Kern Valley State Prison from 2007 to 2008. Prior to that, Hedgpeth served SVSP as chief deputy warden from 2006 to 2007, correctional administrator from 2004 to 2006, facility captain from 2000 to 2004 and correctional lieutenant from 1998 to 2000. He served as correctional lieutenant for Wasco State Prison from 1990 to 1998 and California State Prison, Corcoran (CSP-COR) from 1989 to 1990. He was a correctional sergeant at CSP-COR from 1988 to 1989 and the California Correctional Institution from 1986 to 1988. Hedgpeth was a correctional officer at the Correctional Training Facility from 1981 to 1986. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $129,108. Hedgpeth is a Republican.
October 7, 2009
Riot at Folsom this morning - 8 inmates injured
A riot involving more than 100 inmates broke out Wednesday morning in a dining hall at Folsom State Prison and injured eight prisoners, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The disturbance broke out at 7:30 a.m. and involved about 120 inmates, according to corrections spokeswoman Michele Kane.
"Inmates used their food trays and fists in the scuffle, " Kane said. "Officers were able to bring the situation under control within 15 minutes by using gas grenades and pepper spray."
No officers were injured in the riot and the prison remains under lockdown…
LINK - News10.net
October 27, 2008
Inmate escapes from prison
An inmate walked away Saturday from a minimum-security facility outside the walls of Folsom's California State Prison-Sacramento.
At approximately 9 p.m. inmate Robert Ivan Micheletti was found missing from his bunk in a dormitory setting. Micheletti, 42, was admitted June 3 on a drug-possession conviction…
LINK - FolsomTelegraph.com
August 28, 2008
Inmate medical facility proposed for Folsom
A proposal to build a 1,500-bed inmate medical facility on Folsom Prison grounds drew strong warnings from Folsom city officials who said they would oppose any project that threatened to snarl traffic on local roadways.
Council members said they had serious concerns about increased traffic that would come with 1,500 additional employees.
Councilman Jeff Starsky said $30 million in city funds have been spent to build the new bridge over the American River to relieve traffic congestion created by the closure of Folsom Dam Road…
LINK - SacBee.com (The Sacramento Bee)
August 12, 2008
Folsom Prison Inmate Taken into Federal Custody on Charges of Prosituting Minors Interstate
A man charged with federal violations including sexual trafficking of children and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, was taken into federal custody today by agents with the FBI, announced Salvador Hernandez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Aaron Pierre Brown, 28, of Hayward, California, controlled a prostitution operation in which he victimized minor females… The complaint charges Brown with Title 18 U.S.Code Section 1591 ( a )( 1 ), sex trafficking of minors by force, fraud, and coercion; and 2423( a ), transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
…Brown was arrested at Folsom Prison this morning, where he was serving a sentence for a recent parole violation. Brown was afforded an initial appearance before a federal magistrate in U.S. District Court in Sacramento this afternoon and was detained. Brown waived his right to be tried in Sacramento and it is anticipated that he will be transported to Los Angeles to face prosecution.
LINK - Media-Newswire.com
July 11, 2008
Death penalty’s survival uncertain, state finds
Some 71 years after the last hanging of an inmate at Folsom Prison, California's death penalty is fatally flawed, according to a state commission report.
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice was established in 2004 in part to determine the extent to which the state's legal system has caused wrongful executions. It reported June 30 that the state must narrow its death penalty, in part because the penalty is impossibly expensive to continue in its current broad form.
Under the statute now in effect, a full 87 percent of California's first-degree murders are "death eligible," and could be prosecuted as death cases, the commission noted. Any of a total of 22 "special circumstances" can be cited by local prosecutors in seeking a death penalty. The list includes drive-by murder. A federal Justice Department study in 2000 found numerous racial and geographic disparities applied to death penalty sentences…
LINK - EDHTelegraph.com (The El Dorado Hills Telegraph)
May 30, 2008
New Folsom Prison frees up some space
Inmate overcrowding is lessening at the state prison nicknamed New Folsom, but a questionable convict death last month currently clouds a program that moves California inmates to out-of-state private custody.
Progress on prison crowding comes under legislation, AB 900, designed to fund prison construction, provide for transfer of California inmates out-of-state and reduce the number of drug offenders housed in state prisons.
At the local California State Prison, Sacramento, just uphill from Folsom State Prison, officials have nearly emptied a couple of gymnasiums formerly full of what are known as "bad beds," said spokeswoman Judy Loer. Bad beds are any non-regulation sleeping arrangements that have been made up in prison gyms and clinics around the state's penal institutions…
LINK - EDHTelegraph.com (El Dorado Hills Telegraph)
March 15, 2008
Correctional officer files complaint against judge
Michael Mohr walks the concrete corridors of California State Prison, Sacramento, in Folsom. As a correctional officer, he has to keep his senses alert, his reflexes acute. He didn't expect to be "assaulted," he said, by a judge. But Mohr said he found himself in that position last week, when he came before Commissioner Christopher Longaker in Sacramento's small claims court.
Mohr's claim: mental anguish caused by a convicted murderer serving life who hurled bodily fluids – known in prison as "gassing" – at the officer last fall. […] The commissioner called Mohr's claim "laughable" and said it was in Mohr's job description to expect to be assaulted and "slapped around," the prison officer recalled.
LINK - SacBee.com (The Sacramento Bee)
February 29, 2008
Feature Article: The Prison-Industrial Complex
Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers.
In the hills east of Sacramento, California, Folsom State Prison stands beside a man-made lake, surrounded by granite walls built by inmate laborers. The gun towers have peaked roofs and Gothic stonework that give the prison the appearance of a medieval fortress, ominous and forbidding. For more than a century Folsom and San Quentin were the end of the line in California's penal system; they were the state's only maximum-security penitentiaries. During the early 1980s, as California's inmate population began to climb, Folsom became dangerously overcrowded. Fights between inmates ended in stabbings six or seven times a week. The poor sight lines within the old cellblocks put correctional officers at enormous risk. From 1984 to 1994 California built eight new maximum-security (Level 4) facilities. The bullet holes in the ceilings of Folsom's cellblocks, left by warning shots, are the last traces of the prison's violent years.
LINK - TheAtlantic.com
February 21, 2008
Some prisoners are vulnerable to crime behind bars
There is societal pecking order within the inmate population and it appears that child molesters are on the bottom of the food chain. "Even in a criminal world there's a code," said Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner. "Child molesters are not well thought of in any quarters."
A week ago a prison inmate, serving a life term for killing his mother in Rocklin almost a decade ago, allegedly fatally stabbed another inmate. Steven Matthew Schultz, 28, reportedly used a homemade "shank" last Thursday to slash the throat of convicted sex offender Shannon Lee Graling, 53, at the California State Prison-Sacramento in Folsom…
LINK - EDHTelegraph.com
January 28, 2008
Folsom State Prison Audit by OIG - problems, issues identified
This report presents the results of an audit by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concerning the operations of Folsom State Prison and the performance of its warden. The audit was performed under California Penal Code section 6126, which requires the OIG to audit each warden of an institution one year after his or her appointment, and to audit each correctional institution at least once every four years. The OIG performed the audit work between March 28, 2007, and November 30, 2007…
January 25, 2008
Cellmate a Suspect in Folsom Inmate’s Death
An inmate at California State Prison, Sacramento, was discovered dead Wednesday morning with an apparent stab wound to his neck, according to prison authorities. Oscar Hidalgo, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that shortly before 10 a.m., a doctor doing a routine check found the 33-year-old victim unresponsive in his cell at the Folsom facility. He was pronounced dead with what appears to be a stab wound…
LINK - SacBee.com
January 9, 2008
Folsom Prison Blues: Cash Tribute Scrapped
California corrections officials have cancelled Sunday's tentatively-scheduled 40-year anniversary concert celebrating Johnny Cash's fabled appearance at Folsom State Prison. Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said today that a disagreement between prison officials and the concert's producer over local media attending the show could not be resolved and that the state called off the show amid concerns over "safety and security…
LINK - SacBee.com
Original concert announcement story from SacBee.com 1/7/08 - LINK
January 2, 2008
Review: Folsom State Prison, Quadrennial & Warden Audit
This report presents the results of an audit by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) concerning the operations of Folsom State Prison and the performance of its warden. The audit was performed under California Penal Code section 6126, which requires the OIG to audit each warden of an institution one year after his or her appointment, and to audit each correctional institution at least once every four years. The OIG performed the audit work between March 28, 2007, and November 30, 2007.
