3: The Major and Her Crew

On behalf of everyone at WBEZ, thank you to the members who support this station. We are 100% funded by our community, and that's because listeners like you understand the importance of keeping fact-based, independent reporting free and accessible to everyone. Thank you for being an essential part of everything that we do. If you aren't a member yet, we hope you'll join us. Give monthly to keep your new strong at WBEZ.org/donate. Today is the 8th of February, 28th. I am a special age of monochistrainer with the Illinois State Police Division of Internal Investigation. With me in the room are investigated, written, or over the Department of Corrections in New York, and Susan Francis, major of Pontiac Corrections and Prentice P.R.E. and. In the winter of 2019, Susan Prentice sat down to investigators. The man is from the Department of Corrections. The woman is from the State Police. For the most part, she takes the lead. You don't have to talk to me. If you don't like the line of question, then I'm going down. You can say I'm down, monochist. Then you can walk out. All right, go with that. All right, so with that said, would you go ahead and sign right here that you understand that? I've been trying to get a guard from Pontiac to record an interview with me. It's a pretty tight-lipped community. But now here was a recorded conversation with one and not just anyone. Susan Prentice, she's a major. That's a pretty high-ranking correctional officer. Someone supervising other staff. And her name comes up a lot. Jimmy Estokes, the mental health worker from the last episode, first mentioned her to me. I would describe Susan Prentice as the devil. And I say that with authenticity. And many of the men incarcerated at Pontiac said similar things. Oh, yes. They call them the red devil. They call it princess. They call it a red dragon. My reputation was if you didn't comply with whatever she told you to do, she would get the officers and she would come to your cell and they would jump on you. She don't like you. You out. So if this hoop up top, why you think everybody else adds holes like she don't care about nothing. Monica Strandberg, the state police officer, has heard about her from guards who have a different perspective. And everybody I talk to, major Prentice is a rock star. We want to do things for her because you know what, major Prentice has my back. And if somebody has my back, I'm going to work. I'm going to work my ass off for you. So this investigative interview, it's with a legend at Pontiac, an institution inside the institution. And once we learned there were tapes of Prentice and also people who worked with her, we spent years arguing back and forth with the help of lawyers to get our hands on them. As you can hear, the first part of the Prentice interview doesn't sound very aggressive. Strandberg praises Prentice and tells her, just like you, I was a guard at an Illinois prison. Yeah, before I came to police officer work there for many years, we've done a lot of the same things. I'm not going to speak for you, but I know what I've had to do, two games respect for the fellas. And we all back each other up 100%. I am very propolis, Procio. So I'm not a, I'm not a, how did I get this or? It's hard to tell, but it seems like Prentice may not know yet. If Strandberg is there to investigate a prisoner, to dig up dirt on one of her co-workers, or there to investigate her. Obviously you have gained a boatload of resets and you know what goes on. And that's what we want to talk about today. About things that are going on here. Things that are going on here. I read reports written by Prentice and by people who worked under her. So I knew how they reported things that were going on in Pontiac. I knew the official stories crafted on paper of attacks on guards and efforts at discipline. What I didn't know, what was about to get a peek into, was what guards told each other about what was happening inside, in emails or after roll call when they thought no one was looking. From WBZ Chicago, I'm Shannon Heffernan and this is Motive. Episode three, The Major McGrill. Major Prentice tells the investigators she goes by her middle name, Kim. And she's 52 years old. I've seen photos of her. She's been teed in from what I've seen. Always looks put together. The thing about her, she gets sued a lot. Federal court records show she's been named in more than 100 cases. She's not always the focus of the lawsuit. Sometimes just the supervisor. And prisoners do sue a bunch. But even considering that, that number is big. None of those cases ended with a finding against Prentice. But the state did pay to settle several. They run the gamut. Some are petty cases, but there's also cases that claim Prentice destroyed a prisoner's property. Another about her and other guards keeping a man from getting medical care. And in case of officers who worked under Prentice, getting a prisoner to beat another prisoner up. That one settled for $50,000. Police culture is crazy. Farm and culture, we all have our own little clicks. The community at Pontiac, from what I've heard from other staff and people in prison, is tight. As Drambart talks to Prentice, she appears to be signaling in all these ways, I'm an insider in law enforcement, a former CEO. You can talk to me like I'm one of your own. We all, I don't hang out, honestly, I really don't hang out with anybody about police officers. But people that we have the same mindset and we think the same way. After work, we went out, we hit beer, and we all drank until all this time, not to drink and go home. It comes to the camaraderie, we get it, you know, you get everybody talks amongst each other. Do they hear or don't they? Do they hear us do that yet? Well, I'm friends with a few of them, but as far as personal lives, I mean they don't bring anything down to that to me. Prentice must sense this is a thing she shouldn't say, that she's close with other staff, part of a tight-knit community. Because this, what she tells Strandberg, seems to be a lie, or at least not the full picture. Prentice's husband is a CEO, a guard at a nearby prison. Her son is a guard too, at Pontiac. And I used open records laws to get some princesses emails. They're full of affection with lots of fellow staff, not just family. There's love-uses and I love you mores, plans to go out drinking to crash at each other's house. Shit chat about the holidays or fights with family. In one email to a former co-worker, he writes, quote, "I think DOC is just like the military as far as friends go. High-stress jobs, who everyone kind of sticks together more. I always said I never had friends like I did in the army until I started here." Pontiac, you've probably already gotten the sense, is a rough place to work. Ask me, the union that represents most guards, had organized a campaign about assaults against staff. And the court monitor, the man you heard from last episode, about the mistreatment of prisoners with mental illness. He also said the guards were traumatized by working in this place. Strandberg asked Prentice about the wild stuff that happens. "Being here for all these years, how many times have people thrown stuff on you? A whole lot. You've ever been beat up, shank, stabbed, or whatever, y'all, probably. No. One type of substances of people thrown. Feeces, urine, food. We just go over to the healthcare unit and wash your hands or wash your face. Get back on or you just get back to work. Yeah. That's just kind of what we do." At this point, Strandberg gives Prentice a piece of paper. I imagine her sliding it across the table. "She's still me. If you remember this tonight, yeah, it's my handwriting. Okay. So it doesn't, what does it, that's just me and you know, he's SMI." This report that Prentice wrote is about a prisoner named Frederick Walker. He's officially designated SMI, seriously mentally ill. And Prentice reports that he threw something on her that smelled and looked like urine. "Do you remember this incident specifically?" "Um, I remember, no, not specific. Not a specific sign of it." It was brought to our attention that you had said to your husband regarding a use of force. I think it was well. water, but urine carries a longer sedentine. To my husband, I have 427 email right here. Andrew purchases your husband right here. The outline for me. So there's 420, 70 emails in here regarding a whole lot of stuff that are chagging. Involving each one of them is from you or from somebody else in the institution to you. Why the hell would you say that? I don't know. How did it get any symptoms? Well, he got time. He's asking my hickum without much time. It's hard to hear, but what she said is, he probably didn't get any seg time, as in time and segregation. She says that's because Frederick Walker is designated seriously mentally ill. But as in my people, do get seg time. In fact, Walker got 45 days. So for 45 days up to 23 hours a day, he was in a cell without much stimulation at all. Some context. The UN's the solitary confinement can be torture because it's so psychologically grueling. Hard for anyone, let alone someone with serious mental health issues. If it wasn't clear to Princess before, she knows it now. The investigators aren't there to talk about something one of the incarcerated men did, and they aren't there to just dig up dirt on one of Princess's co-workers. They are there for her. They've got 427 emails. For this first incident, Princess offers a defense. Even if she had lied on her reports, said Walker through urine when she thought it was water, it didn't matter. Throwing a liquid at a guard near an or water, you broke the same rule. You're going to get the same seg time. But you have to keep in mind there's discretion in what people actually end up getting punished for. And urine, well, sounds grosser, right? More likely, something administrators are going to pursue for punishment, and pursue for punishment they did. In addition to seg time, Walker's case got forwarded from prison officials to the local state's attorney, to be considered for criminal prosecution of Walker. These reports, the one Princess wrote, they're powerful. And if it wasn't for the fact that she bragged about her lie and writing, there would be no way to prove that Walker hadn't thrown urine on her. People usually believe guards after all. I reached out to Princess multiple times. She did not want to do an interview. I just want to just understand what you were thinking and why you said it. I thought it's all I don't know. Obviously you were angry with it, mate. I get that if somebody throws something on you, I wouldn't be for going to have you about a one-beds year. That's human nature. I'm just trying to get in your mind and wondering what you were thinking. I don't know. I'm going to step away from this interrogation, to zoom in on the Walker incident for a moment. Because there's something I piece together by matching those email strandberg hat to other documents. Police didn't ask Princess about it, but I think it's important context because it illustrates something I've heard over and over again from people locked inside. Something that I think this interrogation is trying to get at. That guards allegedly have an unofficial way of punishing men behind bars. And that there's ways it's hidden. So, Frederick Walker, he fully admits to throwing water on Prentice. He says she had just pepper sprayed him and he was trying to stop her from doing it again. He said he thought it pissed her off. And a few days after the water incident, Walker said two guards came to a cell and beat him. He said they never said it explicitly, but he believed it was retaliation for throwing water at Prentice. I reached Walker in prison. Prison phones are the worst. The audio is hard to understand. But he said they pulled his hands through the slot where the food trays are delivered. He took the food and he slammed the twice. We got all pale, pale. All both my arms, so I heard it. All right, but you're huge and my friends. He said after they slammed the door on his arms, they came into his cell. He said he moved to the back, but they followed. Then one of them picked him up. So, he picked me up and slammed me down. So I was kind of scared to the town where Rupert was on the floor. And I was trying to get up. So my back was clear. By the time I made it to my feet, he would keep me the rest of my back, my ears real hard. Walker was later treated for a rib fracture, according to his medical records. In emails, Prentice wrote to a group of guards that Walker is reporting an injury caused by staff. She writes, "I did view the camera and you can't see that an incident occurred, but no details." Another staff member writes back, "What camera did you watch? Both cameras on that end are pointing at the wall, which, obviously, not super useful." With no clear video and nothing but the word of Walker versus staff, prison administrators decided accusations from Walker were unsubstantiated. The guards were absolved. So, like I said, that beating Walker alleges, it never came up in this interrogation. I don't know if investigators didn't piece it together or it's not their focus, but either way, Prentice could still be in deep water here, for lying on a report, saying that Walker threw urine even though she believed it was water. Investigators told her lying on a report can be official misconduct, a felony. Prentice doesn't seem that worried, like it's that big of a deal. What Prentice doesn't know, at least at this point in the interview, is that at the exact same time investigators are talking to her, an hour drive away investigators are also talking to a former correctional officer who worked underneath her. I'm Troop or Timothy Price, I'll always say, "Please, division, turn off the investigation." And in the room, I have with me. Investigator Nick Moody, I'll move to Department of Corrections. If you want to introduce yourself, please, Andrew Edwards, former officer at Pontiac. Okay, Edward's no longer works at Pontiac, but still works for the state, in the Department of Human Services as a case worker. The interview is happening at his new office. The interview starts a lot like Prentice's, pretty buddy buddy. The police officer, Price, tells Edwards he too used to be a CEO at Pontiac. You know, it's so crazy, it's like, when I was at Pontiac, man, I would have done anything to protect somebody else. I'd have done enough, an inmate, kind of, kind of, assed up, and then everybody's going down, punched me, whatever. Wait, the first one, I meant it. I was like, "All right, yeah, inmate did insult or whatever, we'll take care of, we'll ride it out, protect each other." After a bit of friendly back and forth, how bad the people locked up at Pontiac are, how hard you work to cover your fellow employees' asses, Edwards brings up his old boss, Prentice. I worked with major Prentice, you know, she was my supervisor for the longest time, and she's kind of a hard ass, you know, but she's a female, she's a female running the, you know, the work saws in the state of Illinois, you know, so she had, she's got her tough ways, but I would, I would, I would die for her, I mean, she was awesome, I mean, I love her to death. So what's it about Prentice that you're so close with her? Because she always had my back, she always has her, she always has her officers' backs. Yeah, yeah, I love Sue because like, she was all about, she's pro officer, all about the CEOs. Sue was like the one person that never backed down from anything. No, ever. Ever, you could be like, look like this, it made, fuck mouth of me. He's won't give a try, and she's like, alright, let's go take care of it. Yeah. Love it, it was great. Yeah. What was some of the interactions that occurred whenever Sue was like a supervisor or anything that comes to mind over that way that we would need to maybe look into a little bit. No, I mean, I always thought she did shit the right way, you know, as far as her ever, like having me do anything bogus. I mean, that never, that never happened. I mean, she, like I said, I'm not going to know bad things are going to be said about her by me, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's. Just for the record, state officials said price, this police officer, did work for the Department of Corrections. Just like Stramberg, but I wasn't ever able to confirm if it's true he worked with Prentice or that he was involved in the kinds of incidents he says he was. All that could be a lie, an investigation tactic to draw Edwards out. But either way, as soon as Edwards brings up Susan Prentice, the interview zeroes in on that. Price prodding Edwards to say a little more, a little more. Anything that Sue ever did that was kind of on the bogus side or questionable maybe that you can think of. Um. No. - Yeah, I was just trying to think, I mean, there's just so much shit that happens at Pontiac, throughout a year, throughout a day. I mean, everybody's always thrown into some kind of bogus shit. - Right, right. What about her bogus shit, like anything that she's done, or she's had you do, or you report? - I mean, maybe, like, stripping a guy with his property, like taking everything, leaving him in there, with boxers on, you know, I, because I never really thought that was totally right, but, you know, sometimes we gotta, she'd have you going there to take his property, because he assaulted somebody the week before. - These punishments, the stripping out, leaving men in their cells without clothes or many of their property, Edwards doesn't seem that fazed by admitting to this. And it's also not what officer price is focused on. He blows right by it. What is it? - It's a big deal. What he's interested in, there's 427 emails. He's got copies too. And he starts reading them. - So it looks like a 444 PM, you had sent super innocent email. So you said, you're definitely right about prison friends. You know, if you're a lot of shit with those people, so it bonds you a little more. Especially when your boss wants you to go into a cell and then bite her, so it's justified why we kicked the crap out of him, LOL. So the first thing I want to touch on is this calm, especially when your boss wants you to kick in. Once you go into a cell and then bite her, so it's justified why we kicked the crap out of him. - Mm-hmm. - What are you talking about? - Yeah, that was, I mean, she came up to me one day. It was in May, Halloween. He had just assaulted, I don't know, an officer he assaulted the day before. And she was steaming in the morning at a roll call. And he had a history of biting because he bit me before. She said, we're gonna go into a cell and do whatever we, you know, whoop up on him. And she was gonna have me bite her to make it look like he did it. So we were justified. - Justified in beating him up. Because Edward said, "Prentice told him they should kick Walker's teeth in." - But we never did that. I mean, we never went to sell or anything. I got shut down. - Was she laughing about it? Was she serious? - I mean, she seemed fairly serious, I guess. - What did you say to her? - Okay. - I mean, I was kind of hesitant at first. So, you know, I said, you know, if that's what you want to do, I guess that's what we'll do. - So, just to be real clear here, even though he says it never ended up happening. - Edward's just admitted that he agreed to bite Prentice so they'd have justification to assault a prisoner. And he said he was following his boss's lead. It was Prentice's idea. - Back in the Prentice interview, she's learning that our former subordinate Edward's is also talking to the police. Strambroke tells her Edward's is cooperating, talking with an investigator at this very moment about that biting email. Strambroke implies she's getting updates about what Edward's is saying. - You wanted to go into Holloway's cell and batter him, and then she and Edward's going to the cell, and he would bite her, Edward's would bite you. And until she told him to stop, and that would be the reason why they battered Holloway. Well, there's always a lot of talk. We always talk about stupid stuff, but it doesn't happen. I'm sure they told you it didn't happen. And you wanted to kick his teeth in. Holloway's teeth in, and Edward's beat you. - Well, if that was bit me, I probably would have went to the healthcare unit correct. - Mm-hmm. - I'm asking you. - I'm not asking you. - I probably would have went to the healthcare unit and filed an injury report. - Correct? - That's the protocol. - Strandberg starts to amp up her gain. Go after Princess even Harmer. She prods Princess about how close she and Edward's are. She eats coming back to that in this interrogation. The relationships, the milieu, platonic, romantic. I think she's trying to get at how that tingled and messy web is part of the prison operations. - What my point is, is somebody that likes you that much would do something for you. - To try to do better than me in someone. - He never mattered anyone. - Didn't happen. - It did not happen. - No. - It did not happen. - Princess is tough. She's not giving Strandberg much to work with. But the pressure building on Edward's? Well, it's working a little better. That's after the break. (upbeat music) - So a recap of what's happened so far. By this point in the police interview, Princess has been forced to all but admit that she wrote a false report on her prisoner. But she hasn't given them much else. As for Edward, her former coworker. At first he told police, "Princess is tough but great. "Nothing bad ever happened, squeaky clean." But then he walked that back. Admitted that she'd asked him to bite her so they could frame a prisoner to justify beating him up. He says they never actually did it. But both these stories, the one about the biting email and the urine email, they both show way staff can manipulate the story and the power that has. Guards can cover their tracks if they want to hurt someone. And they can get people in prison in trouble, time and seg, or maybe even a longer sentence. Serious stuff. - All right, so remember when I told you, I asked you about bogus staff members and things you heard. And you told me, "Nothing." Right? So you lied to me a little bit? - Yeah, a little bit. - So let's not, let's not. - Yeah, I don't know anything again. - 'Cause again, we always know what's going on. - Yeah, I know, I mean, I should know. - So I assumed you knew. - Price basically tells Edwards, you got a cushy state job here at Human Services. But remember, you just started here. You're on probation. And I know your supervisor. I don't think he'd be happy to learn about these emails. - So make sure you're safe and face, okay? Because I don't want to keep sitting here giving you a ton of opportunities to talk when you know something, 'cause the best interest that you can do is to talk. And you can go back out there, you can do your work. I'm just saying there were things that occurred that we didn't know about. 'Cause I do remember back when she was a little tentative. And same thing, go, hey, see what we got going on. She's like, all right, go pull this outside of the cell. We'll put it downstairs, we'll strip them out. For no reason, things like that. - That's kind of what I said earlier. I mean, she probably brought a lot of it on herself. I mean, I think she kind of, you know, gets off on that kind of stuff. You know, she loves, she loves riling them up and seeing them get whipped up on. She definitely does bring a lot of it on her. And I mean, I very rarely saw her ever like, put her hands on somebody, mainly just because she can't, I mean, she can, but, you know, she's female, so. - What Sue does do is she assembles her team and they go down there and she says, "Get 'em, do what you gotta do." And I've been there and done that with her. - Yeah, and who does that? - Exactly what she does. I mean, I can't think of a certain situation where she actually said, like, you know, go in there and I mean, she would always tell us, you know, just go what you do what you gotta do. You know, I'll cover your ass. You know, she said that all the time and she always would. - Yeah. - She would set a team and she'd say, "Okay, today it's you, you, you." You know, if something goes down, I don't want anybody else in the saw house coming because things get, I don't want reports, there's this thing, I want reports, there's something different. She always have a little three-man team, she called it that way, all the incident reports matched. - Yeah. - You know, because that was kind of the point of it, so the incident reports want to get screwed up. - Again, we put these allegations to Prentice. She refused to do an interview or provide a comment. Edwards tells the police officer that this three-man team is Prentice called it. This crew that she flagged to respond to situations. It usually included a guard Prentice was, according to Edwards, having an affair with. That seems backed up by emails, in which that guard sends Prentice sexual messages and she discusses meeting up with him. I feel a little gross talking about someone's personal life, but I'm bringing it up because it's an apparent affair with a subordinate and the closeness of relationships at Pontiac. It's something both staff and people in prison told me allows the abuse and cover-ups to hack. Edwards tells Price this guard was, quote, "always rough around the edges." - I don't know many incidents with them, but I know he was, a lot of times he was Prentice's, like, absolute go-to. - We know why I'm like this. - Well, yeah, and not just that, but because he is a, you know, strong motherfucker, you know, he's a whole fight-free. with anybody. As for Edward's himself, times he acted as part of Princess' crew, there's really only one story he tells that gets into the specifics. It's about a guy named Marlon Billips. A little bit about Billips. He was on the mental health caseload. Staff had accused him of assault before, and he had previous run-ins with Princess and people she was close to. In fact, a 2016 incident with him. It's the only time I found where Princess got seriously disciplined up to this point. I won't get into all the details. But in lawsuits, Billips basically said guards beat him up after he argued with Princess. He said the guard who Princess appeared to be having an affair with was part of it. Also present, according to Prison Records, though not entirely clear how much he participated, Quintis's son. So a real family affair. There's pictures of Billips where his face is swollen and bruised. It's difficult to look at. Quintis said the injuries mysteriously appeared that night, implying he did it to himself, a common accusation I've heard from staff. The guards weren't punished for assault. Investigators said there wasn't sufficient evidence. But Quintis was put on unpaid leave for not writing a report. So back to Edward's interview. The thing to know is this guy, Billips. He's got a history with Quintis and her people. About eight months after that first incident, he covered up the window to his cell. That's not allowed. Guards went into his cell, including Edwards, and that guard, Quintis, appeared to be having an affair with. And then, according to Edwards, Quintis, standing at the door looking on. She had told me before he went in, she goes, "Nothing in the face. As far as hitting him, whatever." And he was much screeler than I thought. I kicked him in the mouth. You know, he got some stitches. Okay. And did she tell you to do that? No, that was me. I just kind of lost my shit. He's trying to assault us. And I just saw, you know, was anything thinking and I did it. Okay. Gotcha. And she knew it. She knew that she had kicked him in the-- I don't know. I mean, there's so much going on right there. You know, I don't know for sure. She saw me do it, you know, but I mean, I told her I did. Okay. I got to know that. Then I did it. Yeah. Sometimes they might get through and ask what up to do. Yeah. I got to tell them it's cool. Yeah. In a report, Staff wrote Billup's try to run out of his cell. But no one, including Edwards, mentioned that kick, which they should have. It's supposed to be in the official version of anything important that happened. In a report, Quintis says Billup's had a lip injury. Didn't say anything about Billup's getting kicked. Even though Edwards said he told her he did it. As far as I can tell, this time, there weren't any repercussions for any of the staff. The thing that struck me most when I pieced together the Billup's incidents is how casual Edwards is. Like, these kinds of things are so normal, it's almost inconsequential. At one point, he says he knows he was in the wrong with how he treated Billups. And then, after admitting all this, Edwards basically says, "But none of this is serious stuff, right? Happens all the time." Since it's never involved in anything real, real serious, would you flub a story a little bit? Yeah, if you say the guy, you got him in the cell and then you tried and spin an on you, and maybe you didn't, but you just roughed him up a little more than what he had to be. And I'm not going to say that never, you know, never happened. I got to meet Truss and I'm with you, dude. We're on the same page, I get it. Other things? I'm not going to say, you know, yeah, like, light on incident reports before, but I think basically any, or any officer that ever worked there, probably has. I mean, at the time, you're just doing it just because you're looking out for everybody else. Sure. You know anybody that was doing that type of stuff? I'm sure everybody. Yeah. After two hours of talk, Edwards interview ends. Alright, well, that's the case. We'll conclude the interview. Time is 12.55. The time is 12.55. Besides waiting through this interview tape, I also read hundreds of emails, complaints from prisoners, incident reports written by guards, medical documents of injuries. It was a lot to make sense of. So I took it to one of the first people who I had heard about print is from. Hi. How did you see Alan Mills? The Uptown People's Law Center is in Chicago, and the storefront of an old two story building. The sign is a simple vinyl banner stretched above the doorway. The place looks like it's held together with spit and string, but almost all the major class action lawsuits in Illinois prisons lead back to here. Specifically to Alan Mills, he's the executive director and has been working there since 1979. Hi. Hey, team. Hi. Alan, it's good to see you. You too. The building is amazing side. The offices were shaken up and rolled like dice. At one spot, you have to go outside on a sidewalk to get between them. On the walls is artwork made by people in prison. People get very creative. I don't know what he actually used. Skittles, if you ever see color, it's probably Skittles that people are using. There's a floor to stealing bookshelf full of letters from prisoners asking for help. Staff say more than 100 letters a week come in, and they read and respond to every single one. Over the years, Mills said they've seen a pattern emerge with printists, but other staff too, a cycle of retaliation. Describe to me what you've heard and understand about how cycles of retaliation might work inside. Yeah, I mean, I've heard about it. I've sued about it. It happens all of the time, rather than allowing the disciplinary process to do its job. It's often taken upon themselves to immediately impose their own discipline against the prisoner. You hit one of ours, so we're going to hit you even harder. And as I said before, guards ultimately are going to win those battles. So there may be retaliation cycle, but somebody really has the upper hand. Absolutely. The story is he's heard from people inside, often unfold like this. A prisoner will do something a guard doesn't like. Maybe something big like an assault throwing a bodily fluid. Maybe something small like just running his mouth. Then staff will retaliate, conveniently forget to give someone a meal. Maybe get physical, maybe use pepper spray. And we'll just keep escalating over and over again, the same pattern. When I show Mills the emails, the medical reports of injuries, nothing surprises him. Still, when he reads this stuff, I can see him having a physical reaction, moving on easily in his chair, even flinching like someone tried to hit him. It's disturbing to see it in black and white. It just is. Again, you know what happens all the time, but to see how confident they are in themselves, so that they can just write this down in a format that anybody can read. I don't know if it's, you know, the good way to think of this is that they're technologically ignorant and don't think about the fact that somebody might actually look at emails someday and think they're really private when obviously they're on a state system, so they're not. But I'm afraid that the real answer is they know perfectly well nobody cares. And in these allegations of abuse, there's one person's name that comes up a lot. Susan Prentess. How often does her name come up in letters, calls? Oh, at Pontiac for a while, anyway, it was coming up daily. I mean, more than daily. Multiple times a day in the letters. For a while, she's in charge of the unit that has the mental health unit in it, and everybody there would complain about her all over the time. The complaints about Prentess have been stacking up for years in letters to the Uptown People's Law Center. And now Prentess is sitting across from someone, an investigator, who has laid out the case using Prentess' own emails, a case of how she's framing people in prison, and if not beating them up, then at least enabling it to happen. He seems to be the police officer, has given up any pretense of being friendly, building rapport. The investigator from the Department of Corrections, remember he's in the room too, also says they've got the goods for criminal charges. You know, a lot of unethical things that go on in the facility. You know a lot of inmates get their asses beat in the facility, and then you turn up blind eye or is you supported? And that's fine. But I'm telling you what, that's unethical and that's wrong and it isn't appropriate. And you know these things and we know you know it and we have the facts that you do do it. I don't do it. I report what I witness. If you want to stick to that, that's fine. I've been a fucking police officer for 22 years and you've been in the Department of Corrections for 23 years. There's stuff that we see out there and has it been reported? No. So for you to say, in all your years in this facility, you have never seen anything go on without reporting. I mean, you know what that's. Bullshit. Bullshit. I didn't say that. You said you report everything you see and that's bullshit. What did I say? You said I learned my, I saw it. I reported it. My question is, in all these years, okay, for instance, 20 years, my question is you, you've looked a blind eye to several things, to many things. That's why I'm asking you. Yes or no? Depend, you know, depending on what it is. It does. It does depend on what it is. it is. You know it means you know what I'm saying made you know it through something on somebody and they didn't feed them a try. My I turn a blind eye. Yeah I don't necessarily know it for sure but what if we're talking about somebody beat up now and you know you know you gotta be know it. Yeah I'm not doing it. It's not happening. You know other people doing for you or you let it happen. Absolutely. Absolutely. You lied in a report to get a guy more say time. How was that okay? I never said it wasn't it. I mean I just like I told you I don't know what my mindset was when I wrote it I don't know what my mindset was talking to me. I'm talking to this condo. That's a felony. I understand that. Talking to these guys conspired to beat it in made up. That's official was conduct. That's a felony. We didn't. If you I don't guess I don't understand. But what else have you done? If you're willing to do these two things. Obviously I wasn't willing to do it or we would have done it. Well you did this one you admit it to it already. I did. I said I don't know why I said that. I well and I and I don't. I don't know why I said that. You know I'm trying to be honest with you as far as that goes. All right. Just don't know what's the top point. Okay. Is there anything else you want to say about me regarding this? No. Okay. This will include the interview. The time is 12.59. After this interview state police forwarded their investigation to prosecutors to decide on criminal charges. But charges were never brought. Edwards is still working at the Illinois Department of Human Services as a case worker. He never responded to our questions. And in response to our detailed list of questions the Illinois Department of Corrections said only that they take excessive force allegations extremely seriously and have a process in place to conduct thorough investigations. They said quote when investigations are substantiated. I do see will take disciplinary action up to and including termination. But here's what actually happened in print is case. They did open an investigation looking at the same emails the police did to decide if she should be disciplined at work. And that investigation did conclude that the false information on a report. But she wasn't fired. I want to tell you is nothing has changed. You know for decades. It was pretty clear that the way to get promotions in the Department of Corrections was to be abusive towards inmates and that the abusive people end up being the supervisors. I thought that some of that had changed and they were doing a much more job better job of professionalizing at least the warden level but apparently down at the which you major right major premise. Yeah. She's a major right down at the major level that is still true that your ability. Your willingness to be brutal will only get you promoted. Why can somebody like this have so much power. Because our prison system is based on inflicting punishment and that's all they do. I think what mills is getting at here is maybe the state doesn't fire people like print is because they are doing their job actually doing what they've been asked to do. At one point in his police interview Edwards alludes to something similar and Lisa's I understand him is talking about the first incident with a prisoner named billups. That's the one where there's a picture of him with a swollen eye and a bruised face. The one where print is got a short suspension over failure to report. After the incident Edwards says print is and members of her team including him got moved out of that cell house the cell house with so many mentally ill people. But after a few months he said administrators move print is and her team right back Edwards theory the other guards couldn't handle it what she did worked her methods kept people under control and that's what the bosses wanted. Because she's one of the only majors I think that can handle it mentally. I mean you know she comes in and brings her crew with her only a couple weeks it's kind of more cleaned up you know so she's just in my eyes she's the best. Printis kept her job until she retired in 2021 she was never charged but there was someone else who was Frederick Walker the guy printis accused of throwing urine even though she thought it was water. In his case the state's attorney did decide to bring felony charges for that very incident. Those charges were eventually dropped but only after we uncovered printis's emails and started asking questions. Next week we look at a prison trial that did happen in fact multiple trials of another man also with mental illness also incarcerated at Pontiac. So he went in for seven years and all of a sudden he's not coming home for a hundred years and what in the hell happened that got us to that point. And we hear about the person behind these decisions someone who does not work for the prison the local states attorney elected by citizens of the county where the prison is located with the power to decide when prisoners or guards get charged. That's next time on Motive. Motive is a production of WB easy Chicago. I'm Shannon Hefferman. Jesse Duke is our producer Marie Mendoza is our associate producer. Joe DeSoul mixed this episode. Nicole Pasalka is our fact checker our editor is Rob Will the Boer our executive producer is Kevin Dawson Tracy Brown is our chief content officer. We had additional production or reporting help from Colin McNulty Candice Mattel Khan and Arnold Petrumb. Special thanks to Matt Topic and Rachel on at Lovie and Lovie original music by Q shop. If you like Motive please tell your friends and share it on social media.