Keith Raniere is still in the SHU at USP Tucson – now going on 60 days. He spends 23 hours a day in a tiny cell.
His cellmate is an intersex person or hermaphrodite.
Raniere is allowed one hour out of his tiny shared cell to walk around a small cage.
The correctional officers [CO] put the intersex person in the cell with him.
A few days later, the guards removed both of them to search their cell.
The two were placed in a small holding cage next to another cell with human feces all over the floor and walls.
Raniere claims he was placed in the SHU in July after he was sucker punched in the head by another inmate.
The attack “left [him] dizzy for days and could not get out of bed,” according to documents obtained by Frank Report.
Raniere’s lawyers say his punishment in the SHU is retaliation for filing a complaint against the BOP in May. They claim the prison forbade him to speak with his contact list and blocked communication with his power of attorney, Suneel Chakravorty.
While Raniere remains in the SHU, the person who attacked him in July was released weeks ago.
Stacy Scheff, Raniere’s lawyer, said:
Mr. Raniere is the subject of ongoing retaliation by the Bureau of Prisons.
Mr. Raniere was retaliated against by having his contacts and call list scrubbed the day after he filed a motion exposing FBI malfeasance.
Mr. Raniere filed a grievance about that retaliation and was shortly after that assaulted by another inmate.
Following the assault, Mr. Raniere was placed in the SHU to investigate the assault.
That investigation cleared Mr. Raniere of any culpability. According to BOP policy after the investigation was concluded, which was weeks ago, Keith should have been returned to his normal housing, but the retaliation continues as he remains in the SHU.
Currently, he is allowed one five-minute phone call per month, he cannot have a razor, he has no access to legal resources, and he is given books at staff discretion.
“This is particularly egregious, because Mr. Raniere is still actively fighting his case in the courts.
Recently, Mr. Raniere was held in a cage for four hours next to day-old human feces, which were on the floor and had been smeared all over the wall. He was even forced to eat lunch here. Mr. Raniere has been given no explanation why he remains in these unacceptable and inhumane conditions.
Raniere supporter Eduardo Asunsolo said:
Keith has lost pounds since being in solitary, where he was placed solely for the reason of being the victim of an attack. This is a human rights issue.
Nicki Clyne said:
Keith Raniere is being tortured and retaliated against in prison… during the process of his appeal and motions that expose serious FBI and prosecutorial malfeasance.
Recently, another inmate attacked him in prison. It’s not sure the reason or if the person targeted Keith for any specific reason, but he was blindsided out of nowhere, punched in the head and knocked out, and swiftly sent to the SHU. That’s protocol.
They separate anyone involved in an altercation and put them in the SHU to investigate and find out what happened. Now all they had to do was watch a video to see that he was minding his own business and someone attacked him. Instead of releasing him back into the general population, they charged him with a violation he fought and later expunged.
However, this was seven weeks ago, and they still haven’t released him despite expunging his record and admitting he didn’t do anything wrong.
He’s in the SHU, in a cell 23 hours a day. The cell is basically a bathroom with another person….
His cellmate is a hermaphrodite and has female parts, and has many allegations and instances where [he’s] been attacked and abused, which is a huge liability to be put in a room with Keith.
Just the other day, Keith shared with his lawyers that the CEOs took them out of the room and put them in separate cages, and there were four cages. One cage had a bunch of human feces… smeared all over the walls.
I think he said there were 19 streaks of human feces. I don’t know if it said something. They cuffed them and eventually fed them lunch… After that, the COs went to their cell, went through their legal work, and took some things.
But it didn’t take that long to do that. Yet still, they left Keith and his cellmate in those cages in a room full of feces for hours.
