Pubdate: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 Source: Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/cgibin/auth/story/content/chronicle/ metropolitan/97/08/22/prisoners.20.html) Contact: 29A Last Missouri prisoners gone Probe continues in Angleton By STEVE OLAFSON, Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle ANGLETON The last Missouri prisoners in the Brazoria County Detention Center headed home Thursday, leaving behind an FBI investigation into alleged brutality and questions about the future of using outofstate prisoners as revenue sources. The 215 inmates, the last of the 415 who were serving sentences at the lockup when the Missouri penal director ordered them brought home a week ago, departed in charter buses Thursday morning. Missouri prison investigators plan to begin interviewing the inmates today to prepare a report for the Missouri Attorney General's Office and the U.S. attorney in that state, said Tim Kniest, a prison spokesman in Jefferson City, Mo. Missouri officials are considering legal action over alleged mistreatment of the inmates, which included a videotaped incident last Sept. 18 in which prisoners were beaten, kicked, shocked with stun guns and bitten by dogs. The inmates had been held here as part of a threeyear, $6 million contract with Brazoria County. The county still has a lease agreement with Capital Correctional Resources Inc., the private firm based in Groesbeck that rented the portion of the county jail in which the Missouri inmates were housed. There now are questions about whether the county and CCRI will consider housing inmates from other states if any are willing to send prisoners here. Brazoria County Commissioner Jack Patterson said Thursday he favors scrapping the contract with CCRI. Among other concerns, he said he wonders whether liability insurance that CCRI was required to purchase to cover the county will be adequate for any judgments that may be issued. "There ain't enough insurance in the world to pay for this mess," grumbled Patterson, who opposed the contract last year when Commissioners Court approved it by a 32 vote. No one with the Sheriff's Department or CCRI would comment Thursday on the probe into alleged mistreatment of prisoners or the future of housing outofstate prisoners. Also left unanswered are questions about why the Sheriff's Department approved CCRI's hiring of two former highranking officers in the Texas prison system. The two men lost their state jobs after pleading guilty in 1987 to federal misdemeanor brutality charges in the beating of a Texas inmate. At least one of those officers, Wilton David Wallace, plays a prominent role on a 32minute videotape that shows sheriff's officers and CCRI jailers roughing up prisoners. The other former prison official hired by CCRI, Daryl French, apparently went to work after the Sept. 18 disturbance. State records show he was certified as a jailer in December. Despite unanswered questions, Wallace apparently was approved for CCRI employment because Sheriff Joe King believed he deserved a second chance, according to comments from Chief Deputy Charles Wagner that were quoted in The Brazosport Facts newspaper. Wagner said Thursday that he was quoted accurately, but he declined further comment. "I've been told to keep my mouth shut," he said. Brazoria County will lose about $1.5 million in revenue from the canceled contract with Missouri. Patterson and commissioners David Head and Jack Harris said raising the county's 35cent property tax rate is the last option they favor to make up the lost revenue. Instead, they said they favor cutting the budget and dipping into the county's substantial reserve funds. Last year, pay raises totaling about $400,000 were approved for Sheriff's Department employees because of the extra revenue the Missouri prisoners were going to provide. Despite the problems, Head said he still favors bringing in out ofstate prisoners. Harris said the county must first determine whether it is bound to its contract with CCRI. Commissioner Jim Clawson, who voted with Patterson last year in opposing the Missouri contract, could not be reached for comment. Brazoria County Judge John Willy said earlier this week he favors bringing in prisoners from another state because of the revenue it produces. Meanwhile, the videotape that led to the jail fiasco was discussed Thursday in of all places Geneva, Switzerland, where the United Nations 149th Subcommission on Human Rights met to discuss inmate mistreatment in Brazoria County and other privately operated prisons across the country. Still, opinion remains divided in Brazoria County, a mostly rural area in which law enforcement officers have a high profile, partly because it is home to six state prison units. "There are a lot of people here who will support the law enforcement officers simply because they're law enforcement officers," said the Rev. Mike Gemignani, pastor of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Freeport. "But if anybody saw the tape, I think they'd be very disturbed by it." Also Thursday, a Wisconsin lawmaker said a group of state legislators next month will inspect some of the eight Texas jails that house Wisconsin inmates. None of them is in Brazoria County, officials said, but they did not say where the 538 prisoners are being held. The visit had been proposed several months ago but was "put back onto the front burner" after word of the Brazoria County jail incident spread recently, officials said.