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Loretto inmate files appeal

An inmate from the federal Correctional Institution at Loretto has asked the U.S. District Court in Johnstown to reverse a finding that he used a telephone at the prison to further criminal activity, a violation of the inmate disciplinary program.

The inmate’s appeal has been put on hold by U.S. Magistrate Keith Pesto pending his payment of a filing fee or a court declaration that he can proceed because he financially is unable to pay the fee.

The inmate, Kiko Richmond, 38, is serving 168 months in the federal prison for conspiracy to distribute or possess cocaine. His prison sentence is to be followed by five years’ supervised release.

He was sentenced by a federal judge in Virginia. His release date is 2028.

Richmond in March 2017 was accused of conspiring with another inmate to introduce synthetic marijuana into the prison.

His contention is that the primary charges against him of conspiring with another inmate were dismissed by a disciplinary hearing officer, but he received a penalty stemming from a telephone conversation he had in December 2016 that supposedly led to sheets of yellow, lined paper being sent to various inmates.

The sheets tested positive for indole carboxide or synthetic marijuana.

Richmond, it was charged, received one of the letters containing four sheets of the yellow-lined paper.

He went through the institution’s hearing process, and it was determined he violated a part of the disciplinary code “that prohibits federal inmates from using the telephone to further criminal activity.”

According to the report of the disciplinary hearing provided by Richmond to the court, he denied he was part of a plot to smuggle in the drugs, and that he denied he used his telephone account and conspired with another inmate to introduce the drugs into the low-security prison.

The hearing officer concluded his actions “met the threshold for use of the telephone for illegal purposes.”

Richmond reported in his habeas corpus petition that the FBI investigated the incident but did not file charges.

He was penalized by the prison by the disallowance of 40 days of good conduct time, placed in disciplinary segregation for 60 days, lost his commissary privileges for a year and had his personal property impounded for a year.

The decision by the hearing officer was upheld at the regional and national levels of the Bureau of Prisons.

The administrator of National Inmate Appeals stated Richmond’s contention he did not commit the act is “without merit.”

He stated Richmond’s due process rights were upheld during the discipline process.

Richmond in a Jan. 18 petition is asking U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson to review the case.

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