More than 20 prisoners were
shackled and packed tightly on a
privately operated bus as it zigzagged
from Wisconsin to Georgia earlier
this month.
The men and women were being
extradited to faraway jurisdictions
where they had open arrest warrants
or pending criminal cases, and some
had been traveling for more than 10
days as the bus picked up and
dropped off prisoners.
Bathroom stops were infrequent,
several prisoners said, so the
passengers urinated in bottles and
defecated on the floor. The heat
failed, and they huddled together for
warmth as temperatures dropped to
freezing. The conditions were so
deplorable that at one point, they all
scribbled down their contact
information on a fast-food wrapper,
hoping to reconnect later to sue the
owner of the bus, Prisoner
Transportation Services, the nation's
largest for-profit extradition
company.
But shortly after Kevin Eli added his
name to the list, near Columbus, Ga.,
he was dead.
Eli, 29, was being transported from
Virginia to Florida to face a nine-
year-old charge of stealing a pearl
necklace during a burglary. His
death on March 7 was at least the
fifth on a PTS vehicle in five years.
Eight months earlier, Loretta Lynch,
then the attorney general, told a
congressional committee that her
office would investigate for-profit
extradition companies after
reporting by The Marshall Project
and The New York Times revealed a
pattern of deaths and abuse in the
industry.
Since 2000, another two dozen people
have been killed or seriously injured
in more than 50 crashes on private
vehicles operated by these businesses,
while at least 60 prisoners have
escaped and 14 others have alleged
sexual assault on board.
State corrections departments and
countless local law enforcement
agencies hire extradition companies
to retrieve fugitives and suspects.
Vans or buses travel long, circuitous
routes, sometimes for weeks, with
little sleep for guards or prisoners.
Because they cross so many
jurisdictions, oversight falls into a
gray zone.
Companies are governed by a 2000
federal law known as Jeanna's Act,
which set broad standards for the
treatment of prisoners but has been
enforced only once.
Seven prisoners on the bus, all
interviewed independently, said Eli's
troubles started when he got into an
altercation with another prisoner on
board. As punishment, the guards,
who were employees of PTS and its
subsidiaries, U.S. Prisoner Transport
and U.S. Corrections, cuffed his
wrists behind his back.
Then, as he began to complain of
chest pain and repeatedly said, "I
can't breathe," they put him in a
segregation cage, prisoners said.
Eli, of Queens, N.Y., pleaded with the
guards to call 911 for 20 minutes to
half an hour, prisoners said. But the
guards accused him of faking his
distress and said the bus must keep
moving toward its next destination,
the other prisoners said.
"I watched that man beg for his life,"
said Ronald Snavley, 47, whose
extradition from Indiana to Florida
to face a drunken-driving charge
took two weeks, including a stop at a
jail that serves as a hub for PTS.
Other prisoners said they had
screamed for help as Eli eventually
fell unconscious and made groaning
sounds, his eyes fixated and his skin
discolored. A guard unsuccessfully
tried to resuscitate him by
performing CPR, they said.
A lawyer representing PTS, Alex
Little, said in an emailed statement
that the company had initiated an
internal investigation into Eli's
death. "PTS is continuing to
cooperate with the applicable
authorities," he said. "As a result of
the pending investigations and
ongoing autopsy, PTS cannot make
any further comment at this time."
Little declined to answer questions
about the alleged conditions on the
bus.
In November, PTS officials said they
had begun to make a number of
safety improvements, including more
frequent breaks for drivers, new
cameras and seatbelts in their
vehicles, and increased medical
oversight by employees. "We trained
them on how to be more aware of
inmates in distress," said Joel
Brasfield, the company's president.
He said he would not tolerate
inhumane conditions.
Yet the passengers who witnessed
Eli's crisis described a ride as filthy
and dangerous as ever.
Prisoners were not able to brush
their teeth or shower for the entire
journey, they said, and a bathroom
on board was unusable. Women
menstruating had to make tampons
out of McDonald's wrappers, in front
of the male prisoners, and urinate in
plastic bottles with the tops cut off.
Wires could be seen dangling out of
at least one camera, and no one had
seatbelts. Shackled, they banged
around as the bus careened along at
high speeds, sometimes crossing the
median and knocking into road
signs.
Theresa Wigley, 54 and a diabetic,
was being transported from
Wisconsin to Florida to face a charge
of improperly using a company
credit card. She said that during her
two-week journey, she was given her
medication intermittently and fed
only fast food; she vomited
repeatedly.
"We all knew that what we were
going through was an unacceptable,
inhumane thing that should not be
happening in the United States of
America," Wigley said, explaining
why the prisoners shared their phone
numbers and social media identities
on the scrap of hamburger wrapper
and entrusted the list to Tyisha
Anthony, a prisoner who said she
was planning a career in the law.
Before climbing aboard the bus, Eli
had served six months at the
Rappahannock Regional Jail in
Stafford, Va., for violating his
probation on a 2012 shoplifting
conviction. The Broward County, Fla.,
sheriff's office then hired U.S.
Corrections to bring him to Florida at
a price of $981 for the 991 miles of
transport, an invoice shows.
Eli died of unknown causes after 11
days in transit, as the bus passed
through Fort Benning, a military
base on the Alabama-Georgia border.
Christopher Grey, a spokesman for
the United States Army Criminal
Investigation Command, said the
military police responded to an
emergency call about 10 p.m. Grey
said CID did not suspect foul play.
Grey and an Army spokesman
declined to answer further questions,
citing an ongoing investigation.
The prisoners said they had been
relieved to see police cars pulling up
to the bus at Fort Benning and had
assumed they would be interviewed.
But they said they were not
questioned, and shortly after Eli's
lifeless form was taken off the
vehicle, they were driven to a jail in
a neighboring county. They stayed
there for 12 hours, officials at that
jail confirmed, before continuing the
journey.
Eli's family members said they were
notified of his death on March 10.
His mother, Tina, sobbing throughout
an interview, said the family had
paid several thousand dollars to have
his body shipped back to the New
York area. She said she had not been
told who, if anyone, would
investigate her son's death. She
described her son as a playful and
generous man who, as a child,
dreamed of becoming a police
officer. He had called her last month
to ask for his favorite meal - strudel
and stuffed cabbage - when he finally
made it home.
"My baby is dead!" she cried. "So
what do I have now? I have nothing!"
A spokesman for the Justice
Department wrote in an email that
the agency takes seriously all
allegations of prisoner abuse and
neglect and is committed to
enforcing the law.
Rep. Ted Deutch, the Florida
Democrat who questioned Lynch last
summer as a member of the House
Judiciary Committee, said Monday
that he planned to renew his inquiry
by writing to Attorney General Jeff
Sessions and calling for a
subcommittee hearing on the deaths
and abuses aboard private
extradition vans.
"What's so appalling is that there's
more care shown to furniture being
delivered across state lines in this
country than there is to humans," he
said.
Cases