The Inexcusable Treatment of January 6 Prisoners Continues

DC Jail Warden Found In Contempt By Federal Judge

So yesterday a federal judge found the Director of the Dept. of Corrections for the District of Columbia Quincy Booth and the warden of the D.C. jail Wanda Patten in contempt of court for not handing over required documents relating to the medical treatment of a January 6 prisoner with a broken wrist who has cancer.

D.C. DOC Director Quincy Booth & D.C. Jail Warden Wanda Patten

Chris Worrell

Federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth

https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1448299031336267776?s=20

Now, that might sound strange to you at first, that the D.C. jail officials blithely ignored a direct court order from a federal judge, until you remember these are the exact same jail officials that 3 months ago refused to let members of Congress into the DC jail to see the J6 defendants.

Not only did jail warden Wanda Patten not let Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar or Louie Gohmert see the prisoners, after leading the congressional delegation outside under false pretenses once they knew why the elected representatives were there, jail officials locked the doors and then accused these members of Congress of ‘trespassing’.

So it’s not exactly that big of a stretch to learn these selfsame D.C. jail officials decided to ignore a court order from Federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth until he forced them to come to court on Wednesday and explain why they hadn’t complied.

Jail officials lied to Judge Lamberth in an earlier hearing back in September when they represented to the judge that Worrell was getting the cancer treatment he needed. And now they were caught.

Lamberth reveals the required notes were only turned over **after** he had notified Booth and Patten he was calling them in for this contempt hearing.

DOC attorney now tries to float the claim that the reason Judge Lamberth’s court order about Worrell’s medical treatment was not complied with is because there was ‘ambiguity’ over if Worrell needed surgery for his broken hand.

DOC lawyer lamely says the guards talk to the patients all the time and floats the excuse that Worrell never complained about being in pain. This is indeed laughable.

Letters written by J6 prisoners at the D.C. jail paint a very different picture from the one the DOC attorney is giving to Judge Lamberth.

The Jeff McKellop letter, among others, gives an in-depth look at what conditions inside the D.C. jail are really like, and likely explain why Warden Patten has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep members of Congress or the press from having access to the inside of the jail.

Worrell’s attorney, Alex Savron, notes to the judge that the wrist injury happened on May 21; it was left untreated for more than a month until the orthopedic surgeon examined it in late June and then recommended surgery. Had the injury been treated in a timely manner, no surgery would have been necessary.

Which directly brings up the fact that the D.C. jail is not giving it’s prisoners adequate medical care. And as Judge Lamberth himself had noted back in September, if the jail cannot provide adequate medical treatment for some of the J6 defendants, then they should be removed from that jail and sent to a correctional facility that does have the ability to treat them.

The fact a prisoner known to have cancer has been left sitting there for most of a year untreated is a national scandal. Worrell should have been moved to a facility that could treat his cancer long ago. Instead, Booth and Patten kept him right where he still is: inside a jail living in squalid conditions.

Being allowed to ‘see’ specialists on his cancer team inside the DC jail isn’t the same as those specialists giving Worrell the medical treatment he needs. This is another attempted dodge by the DOC attorney.

Inexcusable. This man has been held in that jail for most of a year and he still doesn’t have a trial date set?

Finally, Lamberth has heard enough.

Judge Lamberth is now referring both the D.C. Dept. of Corrections and the D.C. jail to the Attorney General for investigation for civil rights abuses.

Given that the current AG is Merrick Garland, we’ll have to see if this goes anywhere.

Public pressure is going to be important, so let’s get the word out about this. Send this post to everyone you know.

UPDATE:

It is now 4 days later after I published this post and we now have our answer as to whether or not anything was going to be done as a result of Federal Judge Royce Lamberth of Washington D.C. referring Patten and Booth and the DC jail they are running to the DOJ and Attorney General Garland for investigation.

News just broke within the hour that the U.S. Marshals are now inside the D.C. jail conducting inspections of the facility. NBC 4, local NBC affiliate in Washington, just made this report.

Was just announced on the air, apparently there’s nothing up yet on the NBC 4 website. Will be checking throughout the day for updates.