Dozens of prisoners allege a culture of violence by guards at federal facility in Virginia

Marcos Santiago heard the clatter of metal chains outside cell 201 next door. Locked in the most isolated unit at Lee federal prison in western Virginia, he knew that sound meant officers were readying to shackle another man to a concrete slab and leave him there for hours — as they had done to him weeks prior. Santiago was left with open wounds from the restraints on his ankles, and the sharp pain of a broken rib.

Over nearly 24 hours on July 4, 2022, Santiago heard muffled thuds and screams from the adjacent cell. It sounded like guards were following the same playbook he said they’d used on him: beating him in his torso with their fists, slamming their riot shields into his body and twisting his hands and feet. In between guards’ visits, Santiago talked to the man through the air vents in their cells.

Santiago asked for his name and prison register number, and tried to distract him from the searing pain in his limbs. Not long after that prisoner was moved out, another person was taken to cell 201 — a younger man from Puerto Rico, who asked Santiago to call his mother and tell her what happened to him.

Santiago wrote down his name and number too — in code, in case officers found his notes. Throughout the summer of 2022, even after he returned to the general prison population, Santiago kept gathering names of people who said they had been shackled and beaten, and those who had heard their screams.

Collectively, their accounts describe a pervasive culture of racism and violence in the prison’s Special Housing Unit, a separate tier where people are locked down for nearly 24 hours a day. Numerous lawsuits examined by The Marshall Project and NPR allege that officers smashed incarcerated people’s faces into concrete walls and broke their teeth, ground down their feet and legs with steel-toed boots, kicked and groped their testicles, and cut off their dreadlocks and ripped off their beards. One man now requires the use of a wheelchair as a result of abuse at Lee, his lawsuit said.

“When I think about what they did to me it just fills me with rage,” Santiago said in a phone call from a different federal penitentiary, in California. He sued federal prison officials in January 2023. “I’ve been in prison for 22 years now. There’s abuse in every prison, but I’ve never witnessed anything like Lee.”

In an email, Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson said the agency “does not comment on anecdotal accusations,” conditions of confinement for any individual or ongoing lawsuits. He said employees may be prosecuted if they are found to use brutality or physical violence. “The vast majority of our employees are hardworking, ethical, diligent corrections professionals, and want those engaging in misconduct held accountable,” he wrote.

The president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1405, which represents officers at Lee, did not comment for this story.

The Marshall Project reviewed 17 federal lawsuits filed in the last five years and spoke with over two dozen people with knowledge of Lee. Nine of those suits, including Santiago’s, were filed with the help of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, a D.C.-based legal nonprofit, and D.C.-based law firm Gilbert LLP.

The violence at the prison has continued despite federal officials’ vow to crack down on mistreatment across all Bureau of Prisons facilities, lawyers representing the prisoners said.

The same summer Santiago and others ended up in shackles, the bureau appointed a reform-minded director, Colette Peters. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this July, Peters reiterated her commitment to “address employee misconduct” and increase resources to investigate abuse.

The complaints at Lee mirror accounts from what was then a federal penitentiary, USP Thomson in Illinois, especially the overuse of four-point restraints. After a 2022 investigation by The Marshall Project and NPR uncovered significant abuse and violence in Thomson’s Special Management Unit, the bureau closed that unit in February 2023. The inspector general for the Justice Department is currently investigating the use of restraints across all federal prisons.

Abuse at Lee “is not a well-kept secret,” said Kristin McGough, who previously ran the prisoners’ rights team at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. “They have a protocol,” she said of the officers in the Special Housing Unit. “There’s no real attempt to hide what they’re doing. If anything, things are getting worse.”

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Bureau policy says restraints are to be used as a last resort to gain control of someone who is a threat to themselves, others or government property. The policy also dictates that “an employee may not use brutality, physical violence, or intimidation toward inmates, or use any force beyond that which is reasonably necessary to subdue an inmate.”

But inside the Special Housing Unit at Lee, officers seemed to follow a pattern that violated those policies, according to dozens of testimonies and the lawsuits. People were walked backward and bent over at the waist into a cell and dressed in paper clothes. In the last few years, many said they were also given a helmet before the assault began. Then they were cuffed at the wrists and ankles and chained at the waist, and made to kneel on the cement floor facing the wall while officers beat them with their fists and shields. Some were also put in four-point restraints, where every limb was chained to a concrete slab.

According to Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, prisoners may be given protective headgear “for their protection only.” Paper clothing must be approved in writing by a warden, he wrote, and should be issued only when a prisoner uses regular clothing in a way that “poses a threat.”

Former prisoners at Lee said it was difficult to speak out about the abuse while they were there, as they felt a constant threat of retaliation from guards. Officers often refused to provide them with grievance forms, or intentionally delayed or lost their paperwork, cutting them off from their only real chance at recourse, according to lawsuits. Multiple people said they were only given a pencil in solitary confinement, but the forms had to be filled out in pen.

Under federal law, prisoners can’t sue the bureau without first going through each step of the prison’s remedy process, starting with filing a grievance. That creates another legal hurdle for plaintiffs, who have to prove they were denied access to the grievance system on top of their other claims.

Santiago believes it was his attempt to file grievances and sue over other issues that made him a target for abuse in the first place. In an incident report, officers wrote that he was moved to the Special Housing Unit after refusing to return to his housing unit, and that he was put in restraints for violently resisting. Santiago denies this.

He said officers tried in multiple ways to keep him from creating a paper trail of what happened. “They do everything in their power to block you,” he said. He began sending copies of every form to his sister Jackie Gutierrez, in case officers destroyed his files.

In a motion to dismiss Santiago’s lawsuit, federal lawyers representing prison staff wrote that “each of the Defendants deny the Amended Complaint’s serious and disturbing allegations.” They argued Santiago’s case failed to follow the prison’s administrative remedy process. The court has yet to rule on their request.

Prisoners at Lee said staff targeted them for a variety of reasons. Some were singled out because of sex offenses on their record, or if they were accused of masturbating in front of staff. But others said they were assaulted after more innocuous encounters, like asking for medical help or to see a psychologist.

After being denied his medication, Ryan Amelia experienced a psychotic episode at Lee in August 2023. He hit the emergency distress button, prompting a fight with his cellmate. According to his lawsuit, that’s when officers pepper-sprayed him, pulled him out of his cell and took him to the Special Housing Unit, where he was locked in four-point restraints. Over the three days he was left chained to a concrete block, he went in and out of consciousness. Officers sporadically came to slam him with their riot shields or break his toes, the complaint says.

When Amelia was finally released, there were wounds on his wrists and ankles. His limbs were so weak he couldn’t raise his arms or walk, forcing him to shuffle around his cell on his knees. Medical records show he started losing weight and an oozing ulcer, over an inch wide, opened on his left ankle.

More than two months after he was restrained, Amelia was hospitalized for severe pain and a softball-sized bump that had developed on his hip. Doctors discovered that the infection in his ankle had led to septic arthritis in his joints, medical records show. Despite multiple surgeries, the infection remains in his bone. He will need to be on antibiotics for the rest of his life and will never walk on his own again, his lawsuit states.

“If it ever gets into my blood it will kill me,” Amelia said of the infection, in a phone call from a different penitentiary. He needs his cellmate to help him with tasks such as putting on his shoes. He suffers constant pain, and a doctor has recommended he be transferred to a federal medical facility. “Because of what they did, and what they let go at Lee County, I won’t ever be able to get out of a wheelchair,” Amelia said.

He filed his lawsuit in October. Lawyers for the Bureau of Prisons have not responded to the complaint.

“If any of us were to do anything close to what they did, we would be sitting in prison,” Amelia said of the guards. “I would like to think they would be held accountable.”

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The U.S. Penitentiary Lee sits in Appalachia, near the Virginia borders with Tennessee and Kentucky. The nearby town, Pennington Gap, has a population of about 1,600. Lee County is nearly 94% White.

The staff at Lee penitentiary is 98% White, according to the bureau, and multiple people said that guards seemed to be especially hostile to Black prisoners — who make up 62% of the prison’s population. “That was the only institution I’ve been to where the White staff don’t have a problem calling a Black dude a N-word,” said Cinquan Umar Muhammad, who was at Lee from 2015 to 2019. Dentavia McNair said officers cut off his dreadlocks and used the racial slur while kicking him and punching him in the face, as he was held in restraints in September 2023.

“Lee County was the worst,” said McNair, who was released from prison in October. “That’s an experience I don’t want to see nobody go through. It’s traumatizing.”

Anthony Harrell was incarcerated at Lee in the summer of 2020, as protests over George Floyd’s murder exploded across the country. In court records and interviews, Harrell said staff targeted him after he pushed back on their decision to turn off the televisions showing news coverage of the growing protests. Once he was led into the Special Housing Unit, “They kicked me, punched me, called me the N-word, said, ‘F*** George Floyd,’ ‘F*** Black Lives Matter,’ ‘Can you breathe now?” Harrell said. He was left in four-point restraints for nearly 30 hours, he wrote in a lawsuit. “I wondered if they were going to kill me.”

Harrell sued soon after, but the suit was thrown out for not following the bureau’s administrative grievance process. He was released from prison in 2022. “I never felt hate in my life before that day,” he said of his time in restraints. “When you have guys you’re trying to rehabilitate, you don’t lock them in a cage and kick them for years. That’s not making society safer.”

Nelson stressed that bureau policy forbids officers from using “profane, obscene or abusive language,” or acting in a way that is “demeaning” to incarcerated people.

Most of the violence happened in spaces without cameras, prisoners said, or in rooms where the cameras were covered up. Under bureau policy, nurses are required to record video of their medical assessments of prisoners in restraints. But people incarcerated at Lee said they were threatened by officers and told to report “no injuries” on camera when medical staff asked.

“They were on a rampage that summer, putting people in four-points and beating their ass,” said Bruce Altenburger, who was being held in the Special Housing Unit from May to December of 2022. He was held in restraints for nearly 24 hours, he said. “It felt like every night you would hear a man in four-points screaming.”

Some of the abuse escalated to sexual assault, according to lawsuits and interviews with incarcerated people. Two men said officers put fingers or mop handles in their anus while they were in the Special Housing Unit, according to letters and legal complaints. At least 10 people said their genitals were groped or injured while restrained.

According to Bureau of Prisons records, five official complaints were filed at Lee under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act from 2021 to 2023. The records don’t provide details of the allegations. None were substantiated.

Prisoners at Lee said officers weren’t the only threat. Many said employees ignored, or even intentionally stoked, violence between cellmates. Four people have died by homicide at Lee in the last five years, according to the state medical examiner.

After Amelia was released from restraints, he was beaten by his cellmate for the next two weeks at the urging of officers, according to Amelia’s lawsuit. The cellmate smothered him with “blankets, clothing, a sheet rope, and eventually, his hands,” until Amelia lost consciousness. The lawsuit says the man was given “additional privileges, such as books and additional time on the phone, in exchange for assaulting and torturing Mr. Amelia.”

Cathy Thompson was working in the bureau’s national Psychology Services branch in 2022 when she started hearing concerning stories about Lee from other psychologists. Prisoners were being transferred from Lee to other facilities, especially Atlanta, and telling staffers about their mistreatment. Thompson planned a visit to Lee penitentiary to review operations, especially regarding accounts of sexual abuse. But weeks before the trip was scheduled, officials canceled the visit.

“I think [they] phrased it like, ‘Now’s not a good time,'” said Thompson, who retired from the bureau last year. “I was just furious. Because what I had heard was so distressing. If 25% of the allegations were true, if even one of the allegations were true, it was too much.”

Nelson, the bureau spokesperson, would not comment on Thompson’s account. He wrote that a site visit was conducted at Lee in October 2023, but would not provide further detail.

The conditions described at Lee have persisted for years, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Corrections Information Council, a watchdog for prisons where D.C. residents are held. The group issued a report in 2019 that found accounts “of staff violence were many and varied.”

Investigators wrote, “Throughout the facility, inmates the CIC spoke with expressed concerns about a culture of violence extending to facility leadership, and including staff both perpetrating and encouraging violence against inmates.” Half of respondents said they had been “harassed, threatened or abused” by staff there. Many reported being afraid of retaliation if they even spoke to investigators about conditions.

Anthony Thomas was incarcerated at Lee in 2018 and worked as a custodian in the Special Housing Unit. “You see blood. I had to clean up urine and feces just because they’d been in there so long and they won’t let you use the bathroom,” he said of the prisoners who were held in restraints. “If you’re crying, they’re gonna keep coming in and messing with you.”

According to Nelson, prisoners in restraints should be given the opportunity to use the toilet every two hours unless the person is “continuing to actively resist or becomes violent while being released from the restraints.”

In a response to the D.C. group’s findings, a Justice Department official called them “unsubstantiated allegations” based on a “small percentage” of prisoners. The official reiterated bureau policy on the use of force and noted that staff received yearly training on the issue.

The bureau updated its use of force policy this summer, to specify that officers have an “affirmative duty to intervene” and stop or prevent abuse, and that restraints may not be used “in a manner that causes unnecessary physical pain or extreme discomfort.” Anyone who uses excessive force could face criminal charges, the policy states.

Also this July, President Joe Biden signed a law that would create an independent ombudsman to field complaints from federal prisoners. The statute also requires regular inspections of bureau prisons, especially “higher risk” facilities.

Throughout Santiago’s time at Lee, he and his sister Jackie Gutierrez continued to gather stories of people who said they had been assaulted there. Gutierrez started calling their wives, mothers and sisters. They both started writing to senators, representatives, judges and the NAACP. In total, they gathered the names of more than 50 people who had been incarcerated at Lee and said they had experienced or witnessed widespread abuse. Many of those prisoners would go on to file lawsuits against the bureau.

“I am trying to get help re: the torture/abuse/beatings/threats at USP Lee,” Santiago wrote in a November 2022 letter to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who represents Virginia. “My life is in danger and I do not want my sister to have to plan my funeral.”

In an email, a spokesperson for the senator said they forwarded Santiago’s letter to the Bureau of Prisons.

After Santiago sued prison officials, he was transferred out of Lee and to Victorville penitentiary in Southern California two months later. Another man at Lee who had worked with Santiago continued collecting testimonies and working with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee.

McGough, the former attorney for the committee, hopes their lawsuits might bring an end to the violence at Lee.

“People just want to serve their time in peace,” she said. “Nobody is trying to get out of prison, these folks just want this abuse to stop. There’s lasting trauma that no amount of money in the world can ever repay.”

NPR Correspondent Joseph Shapiro contributed to this story.