Louisiana Voice

Wow. Five former employees of the Catahoula Parish Correctional Center have been indicted and a sixth has already entered a guilty plea following an investigation into abuse of prisoners at the facility two years ago.

The ANNOUNCEMENT of last week’s indictments of the prison warden, assistant warden and other supervisors was made by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Louisiana. They are accused of abusing 13 handcuffed prisoners with an electric riot shield and for then attempting to cover it up (yep, another coverup). The identities and titles of those indicted include:

• Jeremy Wiley, 44 of Harrisonburg, the former warden of CPCC, was charged with 13 counts of abuse of rights under color of law for using the electrified riot shield to shock and crush the 13 handcuffed, non-resisting prisoners, on Feb. 1, 2024.
• Gary Allen, 57 of Winnsboro, CPCC’s former assistant warden;
• William Savage, 57 of Monroe, CPCC’s former colonel;
• James Wathen, 37 of Jonesville, CPCC’s former chief of security, were charged with 13 counts of abuse of rights for their failures to intervene to stop the assaults;
• Chad Littleton, 45 of Harrisonburg, a former Catahoula Parish sheriff’s deputy, was charged with one count of abuse of rights for striking a prisoner in the head and genitals.

All five men were also charged with conspiring to violate the rights of the prisoners as well as falsifying reports about the incident (the coverup). Allen also faces one count of witness tampering.

In addition, on April 14, Carl Michael Williamson, 40 of Jonesville, a former CPCC transportation officer, pleaded guilty in a related case to one count of abuse of rights under color of law for striking one of the inmates in the head and one count of falsifying a report which covered up the abuse of the 13 prisoners.

Sheriff Toney Edwards immediately held a press conference, complete with a lineup of four mute but attentive deputies, hands clasped in front of them, at which he proclaimed with some hint of righteous indignation that each of the individuals named in the 34-count federal indictment have been “suspended.”

Edwards added that he was committed to keeping all prisoners under his supervision safe and that “everything humanely possible is being done to protect the community and uphold the integrity of this office.”

But hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute there, Sheriff. Does this STATEMENT by Eldred Roy, your former chief detective, look familiar to you?

And there’s this LOUISIANAVOICE STORYfrom almost exactly two years ago which called attention to reports of inmate deaths, stabbings, beatings, the arrest of corrections center employees for smuggling contraband into the facility, the use of inmate labor to cut firewood that a prison official sold for personal profit and the use of inmate labor to perform construction projects for private citizens.

Of course, the Louisiana Ethics Board, as might be expected since Bobby Jindal and Jeff Landry gutted it of any real enforcement powers, cleared Sheriff Edwards of all charges of ethics violations. Again, that’s par for the course in Louisiana.

And Edwards denied involvement in ANOTHER ALTERCATION at an ICE facility in Catahoula Parish way back in 2020—even though he did admit that he and his deputies were at the scene at the time of a protest that detainees say was broken up by sheriff deputies with pepper spray and projectiles.

Awful lot of coincidences there, Sheriff.

Y’know, Sheriff, Harry Truman had a little sign on his desk that said the buck stops with the guy in charge. That would be you.

So, it’s kinda difficult to see how you could be taking the high road here. In the end, you have to take responsibility for the actions of your employees. That’s just the way it works.

It appears that Roy is saying you were informed as far back as nearly three years ago of mistreatment of inmates. It appears from our vantage point that you had ample time to conduct your own investigation before the feds stepped in and necessitated that you become proactive.

You knew of beatings, deaths and other charges yet chose to do nothing until the federal indictments came down.

Afraid I gotta say this is on you, Sheriff.