Former Muskogee County jailers indicted on alleged civil rights violations, lying to FBI
BY SUSAN HYLTON World Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
2/13/13 at 5:49 PM
MUSKOGEE — A federal grand jury in Muskogee indicted two former Muskogee Jail administrators in connection to a multiple-count civil rights case alleging excessive force against inmates, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Raymond Barnes, 42, the former jail superintendent, and Christopher Brown, 31, the former assistant superintendent, are charged with one count of conspiracy to violate inmates’ rights by assaulting the inmates themselves or by directing other jailers to assault them.
They are also charged with aiding and abetting each other stemming from an incident when jailers allegedly threw handcuffed inmates to the ground, causing bodily injury.
The indictment specifically alleges that the defendants assaulted the inmates while they were restrained and compliant.
They are accused of organizing “meet and greets,” in which jailers tried to scare inmates from surrounding counties by slamming handcuffed inmates to the ground and threatening to fire jail employees if they reported the abusive behavior.
The defendants allegedly made jailers write false incident reports justifying the use of force.
Brown is also charged with providing false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with the “meet and greets.” Brown allegedly told the FBI that they “gently placed” out-of-county inmates on the ground.
Former detention officer Dennis Frisbie Jr., 32, was also indicted on one count of making false statements to the FBI.
Frisbie allegedly told the FBI that he was shot by an unknown person in July 2011 for cooperating with the FBI. The DOJ alleges that Frisbie was not telling the truth because he had not been shot at the time of his statement to the FBI.
Barnes and Brown face a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for each of the alleged civil rights offences. Brown and Frisbie face a maximum five years in prison for allegedly lying to the FBI.
Fara Gold and Dana Mulhauser of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice are prosecuting the case.
