For Immediate Release

Maine State Prison exiles five activist inmates.

Five inmates held in solitary confinement at the Maine Supermax are being sent to out of state prisons. The inmates say the transfers are punishment for their efforts to reform conditions at the facility.

The exiling of the five: Deane Brown, Pontrai Moontri, David Fleming, Kirk Dephillippo and Charles Limanni, is the latest chapter in the prison's efforts to put an end to inmate reform initiatives.

The so-called Warren Five were engaged in appealing what they considered unlawful conditions and inappropriate behavior by many guards and administrators at the Warren facility, using legal and administrative channels.

Inmate Kirk Dephilippo was sent to Rhode Island October 18th, even though he had an upcoming scheduled hearing before Maine Superior Court in Rockland, according to inmate Brown. Inmates Moontri and Fleming were sent to New Hampshire on October 19th. At time of writing inmates Brown and Limanni had not yet been transferred.

Critics say that inmate Dephillippo's right to due process is being violated by the move to Rhode Island, preventing him from appearing at his Superior Court hearing; they also say that moving Maine inmates out of state for punitive purposes is a violation of human rights; it puts an end to family visits and makes it prohibitively expensive for low income families to accept collect long distance phone calls from incarcerated loved ones.

Letters from inmates Brown, from Fleming and inmate Mike James and attorney Richard Gerrity describe hellish conditions at the Supermax:

Random beatings, verbal abuse and threats, being left naked in unheated cells in winter, blood and waste-stained floors and walls, an overpowering stench of feces, food containing rocks, glass and other debris and more. The Supermax also echoes with moans, yelling, head banging and crying from mentally ill inmates warehoused in a portion of the Supermax, the inmates wrote.

The letters also describe frequent suicide attempts by Supermax inmates, especially among mentally ill or young prisoners unable to withstand the mental stresses of months of solitary confinement.

Several guards and officials are singled out in the inmates' letters as perpetrating much of the above abuse: Deputy Warden Nelson Riley, Unit Manager Douglas Starbird, Captain David Cutler, Sgt. David Allen, Sgt.Larry Wocester, Sgt O'Farrell, Officer La Montang,(sp?) Officer Mayo, Officer Fred Knight, Officer Ken Vigue and Officer Joe Gerrish.

Inmate also charged that the Maine state prison administrators are illegally diverting the proceeds from the state prison showroom. The construction of the showroom and its related workshop was funded by philanthropist Alice (?) Miller. According to Brown, Miller's will specifically bequeaths the showroom and its proceeds to the "prisoners of the Maine State Prison," in effect creating a fund for indigent prisoners to purchase postage stamps, food at the vending machines, expenses related to court filings and other needs. Instead the proceeds have been unlawfully diverted to the Department of Corrections general fund, Brown wrote in an August 26th letter to WRFR radio.

In April of this year, the five were labeled "escape risks", taken from the Maine state prison's general population and put into solitary confinement at the Supermax for six month terms.

In late May, inmate Deane Brown, serving a 57 year sentence for masterminding a midcoast Maine burglary ring in the 1980s, began writing a series of weekly letters to Rockland community radio station WRFR describing conditions there. The letters were broadcast over Rockland community radio station WRFR as part of the station's 'Weekend News Roundup' show. WRFR news producer Ron Huber also recorded a telephone interview with Brown on June 15th that was aired on the news show on June 18th.

If the allegations of inhumane treatment, violation of due process and violations of human rights are found to be true, the five inmates may find themselves back in familar surroundings at Maine state prison before spring.