THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507010460
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LaFAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
An inmate who was interviewed by state police about a gun found inside the typewriter of executed murderer Willie Lloyd Turner was severely beaten last week in an alleged retaliatory attack arranged by a correctional officer, the inmate's parents said Friday.
The inmate, Michael Stokes, suffered a concussion and wounds requiring 32 stitches when another inmate at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt ripped the lid from a footlocker and beat him with it as a correctional officer looked on, his parents said.
Larry Stokes, who lives in Tampa, Fla., where he manages a janitorial service, talked to his son Thursday, June 22, about the beating that had occurred two days earlier. ``He said the officers told him he should not have talked to the state police because they did not want nobody to know that this inmate had this gun,'' Stokes said.
``They told him he would pay for it. And then they put this inmate in the cell with him. The guy immediately went crazy and attacked him. Just went crazy. And the officer . . . just stood there and watched. And he didn't never report it. And then after it was over, he called and had them take Michael to the sick bay.''
The Department of Corrections' internal affairs division launched an investigation into the beating after learning about it Friday from the state police, said Department of Corrections spokesman Jim Jones.
The internal affairs unit also initially investigated the discovery, less than two hours after Turner's execution May 25, of the gun in his typewriter. But the probe ended after 36 hours, with Corrections Director Ronald Angelone speculating that the incident was a hoax concocted by Turner's lawyer.
After protests from legislators and others who questioned the effectiveness and propriety of the Department of Corrections investigating itself, Gov. George F. Allen ordered the state police to conduct a second inquiry into the gun incident.
Friday's contact between the two agencies raises questions about the independence of the state police probe, said Kent Willis, director of the Virginia ACLU.
``If the allegations are true, the state of Virginia has willfully and inhumanely violated a prisoner's rights,'' he said. ``This whole investigation has reeked from the beginning of conspiracy and ineptitude.''
But Bill Cimino, a spokesman for Secretary of Public Safety Jerry Kilgore, said internal affairs investigators routinely handle ``incidents involving inmates at institutions.''
``That's part of the duties they're charged with. It's nothing out of the ordinary for them to investigate allegations or incidents made by inmates at institutions. That's what they're there for.''
The department has mishandled the matter so far, said the inmate's parents, Larry and Odell Stokes. The couple initially heard about the beating when another inmate called them. When they tried to find out more, they said, officials stonewalled them at first, then downplayed the attack.
``When I first got the message Michael was hurt, I called Greensville and they told me they had no record of it,'' Larry Stokes said.
``Then they put me on hold long distance for 35 minutes and came back and said there was a fight, but that it was just minor. So then I called the regional manager, James Smith. He called back and he said, `It was someone in the cell with your son and he tore the door off a locker and hit your son on the back.' ''
Odell Stokes, a former Washington police officer who worked for 13 years as a correctional officer at the Lorton Reformatory in Northern Virginia, was outraged by the way the department handled the beating.
``I said, `Wait a minute. You call that minor? Let me hit you upside the head with one of those doors,' '' she said.
Michael Stokes, 35, is serving 73 years and six months for an armed robbery in Prince William County. He was one of 15 men who were housed with Turner on a protective custody tier at the prison. Stokes has been in protective custody for 10 years, ever since witnessing a murder in the now-closed Spring Street prison in Richmond, his parents said.
State police investigators first learned of Stokes when Turner's lawyer, Walter Walvick of Washington, forwarded a letter to them in which Stokes indicated that he knew something about Turner's gun.
Anthony Reynolds, the inmate allegedly assigned to beat Stokes, is serving four years and eight months on a grand larceny charge out of Arlington.
Citing its investigation, the Department of Corrections Friday refused to release any information about Reynolds or to allow Stokes to be interviewed. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Cliff McBride
An inmate who cooperated with a state police investigation of death
row gun was severely assaulted by another prisoner while a guard
watched, according to the beaten man's parents, at left.
Color photo
Michael Stokes is serving 73 years for armed robbery
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS PRISONER ASSAULT
GREENSVILLE CORRECTIONAL CENTER by CNB