Inmate Sues Over Transfer To Va.

NEW HAVEN (AP) — A Connecticut prison inmate who claims his mental health problems stem from a “mock hanging” by guards is suing over what he claims is his illegal transfer to a Virginia prison.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of Thomas Sanders, 23, of New Haven. He was one of 484 inmates transferred to the maximum security Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va.

Sanders’ attorney, Diane Polan, said the Virginia prisoner transfer contract forbids shipping inmates with chronic mental health problems.

Polan also said the mental health counseling services at Wallens Ridge are inadequate.

“He’s in a room with a therapist and two other guards in a room, one of whom is holding a stun gun to his ribs during the entire therapy session,” Polan said. “These are barbaric conditions in which to supposedly give somebody therapy.”

The suit cites an incident at the MacDougall Correction Institution on April 28, 1998, in which Sanders was allegedly called into an office and guards threatened to hang him from a noose suspended from the ceiling.

The guards, Phillip LaFleur, Gerald Hines, and Michael Glover, and the state Department of Correction Commissioner John Armstrong, are named as defendants in the suit.