Criminal - 427 Emails

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Pontiac Correctional Center is a maximum security prison in the small town of Pontiac, Illinois. It’s the oldest in the state - founded in 1871 - and has a reputation for being one of the most violent. There is a guard at Pontiac who some staff praise for being tough and having their backs. But other staff and people in the prison say she is known for abuse. In 2019, she was investigated by the Department of Corrections and State Police. Investigators had obtained 427 of the guard’s emails, revealing the conversations she’d had with other staff when it seemed like no one was looking. This episode is in collaboration with the podcast Motive, from WBEZ Chicago, hosted by Shannon Heffernan. Season 4 of Motive investigates the hidden world of big prisons in small towns. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please use discretion. Today is the 8th of February, 28. I am Special Agent Monica Strandberg with the Illinois State Police Division of Internal Investigation. With me in the room are... Investigator Rick Noble, Illinois Department of Corrections. And you are, ma'am? Susan Prentiss, Major, Pontiac Correctional Center. Prentiss, P-R-E-N...

In the winter of 2019, a woman named Susan Prentiss sat down for an interview with two investigators. Susan Prentiss is a high-ranking correctional officer at the Pontiac Correctional Center. She supervises other staff. You don't have to talk to me. If you don't like the line of questioning, I'm going down. You can say, I'm down, Monica. Okay.

Then you can walk out. Are we good with that? We're good with that. All right, so with that said... Pontiac Correctional Center is a maximum security prison in the small town of Pontiac, Illinois. It's the oldest in the state, founded in 1871. And it's large, with tall red brick walls and towers. It's known as one of

the most violent prisons in the state. And there's one staff member there whose name comes up a lot, Susan Prentiss. Here's Jimmy Estokes. She worked in the prison as a mental health counselor. I would describe Susan Prentiss as the devil. And I say that with all sincerity.

Many of the men incarcerated at Pontiac said similar things. Oh, yeah. They call her the red devil. They call her princess. They call her the red devil. They call her princess. They call her the 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 who up top, why you think everybody else assholes? Like she don't care about nothing. Monica Strandberg, the state police officer conducting the interview, said she had heard about her from guards who have a different perspective.

And everybody I talk to, Major Prentiss is a rock star. We want to do things for him because you know what, Major Prentiss has my back. And if somebody has my back, I'm going to work my ass off for you. Monica Strandberg tells Susan Prentiss that she was once a guard in an Illinois prison. She tells her, quote, we've done a lot of the same things. Have you always been a Pontiac? Yes. Really? Really. Really?

Man. God bless you. How many years is that? 22, 23? Yeah, 23. Oh. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, it is.

I'm not going to speak for you, but I know what I've had to do to gain respect from the fellas. And we all back each other up 100%. I am very pro-police, pro-CO. I'm not a, what do you want to call it, a thug, a thug, a thug. And you've been here for 23 years. Obviously, you have gained a boatload of respect. And you know what goes on. And that's what we want to talk about today, about things that are going on in here. Federal court records show that Susan Prentiss

has been named in more than 100 lawsuits. She's not always the focus of the lawsuits, sometimes just the supervisor. None of those cases ended with a judgment against her, but the state did pay to settle several of them. Some claim Prentiss destroyed someone's property. Another claimed that she and other guards kept a man from getting medical care.

And there was a case about officers who worked under Prentiss getting one prisoner to beat another prisoner up. That case settled for $50,000. Police culture's crazy. Fireman culture. We all have our own little cliques. Honestly, I really don't hang out with anybody but police officers.

But people that we have the same mindset and we think the same way. After work, we went out, we had beer, and we all drank until it was time not to drink and go home. When it comes to the camaraderie, we get it. You know, everybody talks amongst each other. Do they or don't they? Do CEOs do that?

Yeah. Well, I'm friends with a few of them, but as far as their personal lives, I mean, they don't bring anything bad to me. But Prentice's husband is a correctional officer at a nearby prison, and her son is a guard at Pontiac. Her emails show affection with other staff. Some of the emails include the words,

I love you, and I love you more. There are plans to go out drinking or to stay at each other's houses, and conversations about holidays or fights with family. In one email to a former co-worker, Susan Prentiss writes that she thinks the Department of Corrections is, quote, just like the military as far as friends go. High-stress job, so everyone kind of sticks together more.

I always said that I never have had friends like I did in the Army until I started here. Being here from all these years, how many times have people thrown stuff on you? A whole lot. A lot? You've never been beat up, shanked, stabbed, or whatever? Y'all call it? No.

What type of substances have people thrown at you? Feces, urine, food. We just go over to the health care unit and wash our hands or wash our face and get back over to work. You just get back to work? Yeah. That's just kind of what we do. At this point, Strandberg gives Prentiss a piece of paper.

Just tell me if you remember this incident. Yeah, it's my handwriting. Okay. So it doesn't... That just means that he is SMI. This report that Prentiss wrote is about a man in prison named Frederick Walker. He's officially designated as what's called SMI. This report that Prentiss wrote is about a man in prison named Frederick Walker. He's officially designated as what's called SMI, seriously mentally ill.

And Prentiss reports that he threw something on her that smelled and looked like urine. Do you remember this incident specifically? I remember. No, not specifics. Not a lot of specifics on it. It was brought to our attention that you had said to your husband regarding a use of force, I think it was water, but urine carries a longer set time. To my husband? I have 427 emails right here. Andrew Prentice is your husband right here.

The online one. Yeah, he's my husband. So there's 427 emails in here regarding a whole lot of stuff that are shady 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.

He probably didn't get any sleep time. Well, he got time. He's SMI. He couldn't have got much time. It's hard to hear, but what she said is he probably didn't get any seg time. Time in segregation. She says that's because Frederick Walker is designated seriously mentally ill. But people designated as SMI do get sent to segregation. And Frederick Walker was sent to segregation for 45 days, where he spent up to 23 hours a day in a cell, without

much stimulation. If it wasn't clear to Susan Prentiss before, the investigators aren't interviewing her about something one of the incarcerated men at Pontiac Correctional Center did. They're there about her. They've got 427 emails and a lot of questions. The podcast Motive from WBEZ Chicago spent two years digging through official reports, emails, talking to staff, and people in prison to find out what was going on at Pontiac Correctional Center. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. We'll be right back. This month they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.

Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. The podcast Motive from WBEZ Chicago got their hands on recordings of investigators interrogating Susan Prentiss. Here's Motive reporter Shannon Heffernan. The incident with Frederick Walker being accused of throwing urine illustrates something I've heard over and over again from people locked inside.

Something that I think the interrogation of Susan Prentiss is trying to get at, that guards allegedly have an unofficial way of punishing the men behind bars, and that there's ways it's hidden. In this case, Prentiss offers a defense. Even if she had lied on her reports, said Walker threw urine when she thought it was water, it didn't matter. Throwing liquid at a guard, urine or water, you broke the same rule, you're going to get the same seg time. But there is discretion in what people actually end up getting punished for. And urine, well, sounds worse, right? More likely something administrators are going to pursue for punishment?

And they did. In addition to seg time, Walker's case got forwarded from prison officials to the prosecutor to be considered for criminal prosecution of Walker. These reports, the one Prentiss wrote, they're powerful. And if it wasn't for the fact that she bragged about her lie in writing, there would be no way to prove that Walker hadn't thrown urine on her. People usually believe guards after all. I just want to understand what you were thinking or why you said it.

That's all. I don't know. Obviously, you were angry with the inmate. I get that if somebody throws something on you. I mean, I wouldn't be freaking happy about it one bit. Sure. That's human nature. I'm just trying to get in your mind and wondering what you were thinking.

I don't know. Frederick Walker fully admits to throwing water on Prentiss. 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 his cell and beat him. He said they never said it explicitly, but he believed it was retaliation for throwing water at Prentiss. I reached Walker in prison. Prison phones are not great.

The audio is hard to understand. But he said a guard pulled his hands through the slot where the food trays are delivered. 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. And I was trying to get up, so my back was clean. By the time I made it to my feet, he went to hit me in the left side of my back and my rear was real hard. Walker was later treated for a rib fracture, according to his medical records. In emails, Prentiss wrote to a group of guards that Walker is reporting an injury caused by staff.

She writes, quote, I did view the camera, and you can see that an incident occurred, but no details. Another staff member writes back, quote, 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, this beating Walker alleges, it never came up in the recorded interrogation. I don't know if investigators didn't piece it together or it's not their focus, but either way, investigators told her lying on a report,

saying someone threw urine when she thought it was water, can be official misconduct, a felony. And what Prentiss 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 Trooper Timothy Price, Illinois State Police Division Internal Investigation. And in the room I have with me... Investigator Nick Moody, Illinois Department of Corrections. If you'll introduce yourself, please.

Andrew Edwards, former officer at Pontiac. Edwards no longer works at Pontiac, but still works for the state in the Department of Human Services as a caseworker. 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 CO at Pontiac. It's like, when I was a Pontiac man, I would have done anything to protect somebody else. If an inmate kind of assed up and then everybody's going down, punch kick, whatever, maybe the first one admitted it. I was like, all right, yeah, inmate did an assault or whatever. Yeah, we'll take care of it. 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, Prentiss. I worked with Major Prentiss. 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 running the, you know, the worst house in the state of Illinois, you know. So she's got her tough ways, but she was, I mean, I would die for her.

I mean, she was awesome. You know, I love her to death. So what's it about Sue Prentice that you're so close with her? Because she always had my back. She always has her officer's backs. Yeah, yeah. I love Sue because, like, she was all about, she was pro-officer. Oh, yeah.

All about the COs. Sue was, like, the one person that never backed down from anything. No, ever. Ever. And you could be like, look, like, this inmate's fuck-mouthed me. He won't give a tray out. She'd be like, all right, let's go take care of him. Yeah.

Loved it. It was great. Yeah. What were some of the interactions that occurred whenever sue was like a supervisor anything that comes to mind over that way that we would need to maybe look into a little bit um 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 happened. I mean, she, like I said, I'm not going to, no bad things are going to be said about her by me. Yeah, yeah.

Just for the record, state officials said Price, this police officer, did work for the Department of Corrections, just like Strandberg. But I wasn't ever able to confirm if it's true he worked with Prentiss 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 Prentiss, the interview zeroes in on that, Price prodding Edwards to say a little more. Anything that Sue ever did that was kind of on the bogus side or questionable maybe that you can think of? No.

Nothing? No. Anything that comes to mind? You kind of hesitated there a little bit. Yeah, I was just trying to think. I mean, there's just so much shit that happens at Pontiac, you know, throughout a year, throughout a day, you know. I mean, everybody's always thrown into some kind of bogus shit, you know.

Right, right. Well, what about her bogus shit? Like anything that she's said or that she's done or she's had you do or you report? I mean, maybe, you know, like stripping a guy of his property, like taking everything, you know, leaving him in there with boxers on. You know, I guess I never really thought that was totally right. But, you know, sometimes if you got a shit heavy, go in there and just take his property because he assaulted somebody

the week before. These punishments, the stripping out, leaving men in their cells without clothes or any of their property, Edwards doesn't seem that phased by admitting to this. And it's also not what Officer Price is focused on. He blows right by it.

What he's interested in are those 427 emails. He's got copies too. What he's interested in are those 427 emails. He's got copies, too. And he starts reading them. So it looks like at 4.44 p.m., you had sent Sue Prentiss an email. So you said, you're definitely right about prison friends. You go through 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, the most important thing right now, is this comment, 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. What are you talking about? Yeah, that was, I mean, she came up to me one day. It was with M.A. Holloway. 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 were going to go into a cell and do whatever we, you know, whoop up on him. And she was going to have me bite her to make it look like he did it. And 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, we never did that. I mean, we never went in the cellar or anything. It got shut down. Was she laughing about it? Was she serious?

I mean, she seemed fairly serious, I guess. And what did you say to her? I mean, I was kind of hesitant at first. I said, you know, if that's what you want to do, I guess that's what we'll do. Even though he says it never ended up happening, Edwards just admitted that he agreed to bite Prentiss so they'd have justification to assault a man in prison.

And he said he was following his boss's lead. It was Prentice's idea. Back in the Prentice interview, she's learning that her former subordinate, Edwards, is also talking to the police. Strandberg tells her Edwards is cooperating, talking with an investigator at this very moment about that biting email. Strandberg implies she's getting updates about what Edwards is saying. You wanted to go into Holloway's cell and batter him, and then she and Edwards would go into the cell and he would bite her, Edwards would bite you, 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. Mm-hmm. I'm sure they told you it didn't happen. And you wanted to kick his teeth in, Holloway's teeth in, and Edwards bit you.

Well, if Edwards bit me, I probably would have went to the health care unit, correct? Mm-hmm. I'm asking you. I'm asking you. I'm asking you. I probably would have had to go to the health care unit and file an injury report, correct? That's the protocol. Strandberg starts to amp up her game, go after Prentiss even harder.

She prods Prentiss about how close she and Edwards are. She keeps coming back to that in this interrogation. The relationships, familial, platonic, romantic. My point is, is somebody that likes you that much would do something for you to try to batter an inmate in some way. He never battered anyone. Didn't happen. It did not happen? No.

It did not happen. Prentiss is not giving Strandberg much to work with. But the pressure building on Edwards, well, it's working a little better. We'll be right back. What software do you use at work? The answer to that question is probably more complicated than you want it to be. The average U.S. company deploys more than 100 apps, and ideas about the work we do can be radically changed by the tools we use to do it.

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partners, and managers. Listen in as I talk to coworkers facing their own challenges with one another and get the real work done. Tune into Housework, a special series from Where Should We Begin, sponsored by Klaviyo. 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, right? Yeah, a little bit. Okay, so let's not lie about anything again, okay?

Okay. Because, again, we always know what's going on. Yeah, I know. I mean, I should have 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 in the face, okay, because I don't want to keep sitting here giving you a ton of opportunities to talk when you know

something, because the best interest that you can do is to talk and you can go back out there and you can do your work i'm just saying there were things that occurred that we need to know about because i do remember back when she was a lieutenant and same thing go hey sue that's what we got going on she's like all right go pull his ass out of the cell we'll put him downstairs we'll strip him out for no reason things like that that's kind of what I said earlier. She probably brought a lot of it on herself. I think she kind of gets off on that kind of stuff. She loves riling them up and seeing them get whooped up on. She definitely brings a lot of it on her.

I very rarely saw her ever like put her hands on somebody mainly just because she she can't i mean she can but you know she's a female so what sue does do is she assembles her team and they go down there and she says get them do what you got to do and i've been there done that with her she 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 she would always tell us you know just go what you do what you got to do you know i'll cover your ass you know she said that all the time and she always would yeah um she would set a you know 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 cell house coming because things get, one report says this thing, one report says something different. So she'd always have a little three-man team, she called it that way, all the incident reports matched.

You know, because that was kind of the point of it, so the incident reports wouldn't get screwed up. We put these allegations to Prentiss. She refused to do an interview or provide a comment. Edwards tells the police officer that this three-man team, as Prentiss called it, this crew that she flagged to respond to situations, it usually included a guard Prentiss was, according to Edwards, having an affair with. That seems backed up by emails, in which that guard sends Prentiss sexual messages, and

she discusses meeting up with him. It appears to be an affair with a subordinate, and the closeness of the relationships at Pontiac is something both staff and people in prison told me allows the abuse and cover-ups to happen. Edwards tells Price this guard was, quote, always rough around the edges. I don't know many incidents with him, but I know he was, a lot of times he was Prentiss's, like, absolute go-to. Well, we know why. Well, yeah, and not just that, but because he is a, you know, strong motherfucker and, you know, he's,

he'll fight with anybody. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. As for Edwards himself, times he'll fight with anybody. As for Edwards himself, times he acted as part of Prentiss' crew, there's really only one story he tells that gets into the specifics. It's about a guy named Marlon Billups. Billups was on the mental health caseload. Staff had accused him of assault before. And he had previous run-ins with Prentiss and people she was close to. In fact, a 2016 incident with him is the only time I found

where Prentiss got seriously disciplined up to this point. I won't get into all the details, but in a lawsuit, Phillips basically said guards beat him up after he argued with Prentiss. He said the guard who Prentiss 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, Prentiss's son. There's pictures of Billups where his face is swollen and bruised. It's difficult to look at. Prentiss says 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 Prentiss was put on unpaid leave for not writing a report. So, back to the Edwards interview. The thing to know is this guy,

Billups, he's got a history with Prentiss 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 Prentiss appeared to be having an affair with. And then, according to Edwards, Prentiss, standing at the door, looking on. You know, she had told me, you know, before we went in, she goes you know, nothing in the face, you know, as far as hitting him, whatever, and he was much squirrelier than I thought, and I kicked him in the mouth. You know, he got some stitches. Okay.

And did she tell you to do that? Nope, that was me. I just kind of lost my shit. You know, he's trying to assault us, and I just saw, you know, wasn't even thinking, and I did it. Okay, gotcha. And she knew it? She knew that she had kicked him in the mouth?

I don't know. I mean, there was so much going on right there. You know, I don't know for sure if she saw me do it, you know, but I mean, I told her I did. Okay. I got you. Been there, done it. Yeah. Sometimes they may just get their asshole up to do it. Yeah. I got to come. That's cool.

Yeah. In a report, staff wrote Billups tried 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 her report, Prentiss says Billups had a lip injury, but didn't say anything about Billups 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 Billups 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. But then, after admitting all this, Edwards basically says, but none of this is serious, right?

Happens all the time? As far as, like, serious incidents, I was never involved in anything real, real serious. I mean, would you flub a story a little bit? Yeah, you know, if you say the guy, you got him in the cell, and then he tried spinning on you, and maybe he didn't, you know, 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 you, man. Trust me. I'm with you, dude. We're on the same page.

I get it. Other things. I mean, like I said, you know, yeah, I lied on incident reports before, but I think basically 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. Do you know anybody that was doing that type of stuff? I'm sure everybody.

Yeah. After two hours of talk, Edwards' interview ends. All right, well, if that's the case, we'll conclude the interview. Time is 12.55 p.m. Besides wading through this interview tape, I also read hundreds of emails, complaints from people in prison, 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 Prentiss from. Hi. I'm here to see Alan Mills. The Uptown People's Law Center is in Chicago, in 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. Hey, team. Hi.

Alan, it's good to see you. You too. Good to see anybody. The building is a maze inside, like the offices were shaken up and rolled like dice. At one spot, you have to go outside on a sidewalk to get between them. I would suggest your coat. Unfortunately, art is not allowed. On the walls is artwork made by people in prison. People get very creative.

I don't know what he actually used. Skittles are, if you ever see color, it's probably Skittles that people are using. There's a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf full of letters asking for help. Staff say more than 100 letters a week come in from prisons, and they read and respond to every single one. Over the years, Mills said they've seen a pattern emerge, with Prentiss, 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, guards often will take it upon themselves to immediately impose their own discipline against the prisoner. Sort of 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 a retaliation cycle, but somebody really has the upper hand. Absolutely.

The stories he heard from people inside often unfold like this. An incarcerated person 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 it will 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 uneasily in his chair. It's disturbing to see it in black and white. It just is. I mean, again, you know what happens all the time, but to see how confident they are in themselves 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 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 email 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 Prentiss. 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 was in charge of the unit that has the mental health unit in it, and everybody there would complain about her

all of the time. Those complaints have been stacking up for years, and now Prentiss is sitting across from someone who has laid out a case using her own emails of how she is framing prisoners, and if not beating them up, at least enabling it to happen. Here's some of Strandberg's interrogation with Prentiss. Strandberg sometimes calls her Kim, which is Prentiss' middle name.

You know a lot of inmates get their asses beat in this facility, and then you turn a blind eye or you support it, 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 hasn't been reported? No. So for you to say in all your years in this facility, you have never seen anything go on without reporting it, that's bullshit.

I never said that to you. That's bullshit. I didn't say that to you. You said you report everything you see, and that's bullshit. What did I say? You said. I said I learned. If I saw it, I report 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? Depends, you know, depending on what it is.

You're splitting hairs, Kim. No, I'm not splitting hairs. It does depend on what it is. You know, inmates. You know, shit rolls down your throat. What if an inmate threw something on somebody and they didn't feed him a tray? Might I turn a blind eye? Yeah, I don't necessarily know it for sure, but whatever. But if we're talking about somebody being beat up, no, I'm not doing it.

You know they get beat up. I'm not doing it. It's not happening. You know. Other people doing it. I'm not doing it. It's not happening. You know. Other people do it for you, or you let it happen. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. You lied in a report to get a guy more seg time.

How was that okay? I never said it was okay. I mean, 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 when I talked to my husband. That's official misconduct. That's a felony. I understand that.

Talking to these guys, conspiring to beat an inmate up. That's official misconduct. That's a felony. But we didn't do it. 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 admitted to it already. I did. I said, I don't know why I said that. And I don't. I don't know why I said that. All right. You know, I'm trying

to be honest with you as far as that goes. Alright. There's nothing else to talk about. Okay? Is there anything else you want to say about anything? Regarding this? No? Okay. This will conclude the interview. The time is

12.59 p.m. 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 caseworker. He never responded to our questions. Prentiss would not comment either. 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, IDOC will take disciplinary action up to and including termination. In Prentiss's 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 Prentiss gave false information on a report. But she wasn't fired. What it tells me is nothing has changed. 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. Uptown People's Law Center Executive Director Alan Mills.

I thought that some of that had changed and they were doing a much better job of professionalizing at least the warden level, but apparently down at the, what is she, a major, right? Major apprentice? 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 Prentiss 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, at least as I understand him. He's 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 Prentiss got a short suspension over a failure to report. After the incident, Edwards says Prentiss 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 moved Prentice 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 could handle it mentally. I mean, you know, she comes in and brings her crew with her, and within a couple weeks, it's kind of more cleaned up, you know, so she's just, in my eyes, she's the best. Prentiss kept her job until she retired in 2021. She was never charged. But somebody else was.

Frederick Walker. The guy Prentiss accused of throwing urine, even though she thought it was water. In his case, the prosecutor did decide to bring felony charges for that very incident. Those charges were eventually dropped, but only after we uncovered Prentice's emails. Reporter Shannon Heffernan from the podcast Motive from WBEZ Chicago. They have other episodes out now covering issues inside the Illinois Department of Corrections. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Our producers are Susanna Robertson, Jackie Sujiko, and Libby Foster. Our technical director is Rob Byers. This episode was also mixed by Joe DeSoe.

Engineering by Russ Henry. Motive is produced by Jesse Dukes, Marie Mendoza, and Joe DeSoe. Fact-checking by Nicole Pasolka. Motive's editor is Rob Wildeboer, and their executive producer is Kevin Dawson. Original music by Q Shop. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show, and Instagram at Criminal Underscore Podcast.

Criminal is recorded at North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com I'm Phoebe Judge, this is Criminal The number one selling product of its kind with over 20 years of research and innovation. Botox Cosmetic, Adabotulinum Toxin A, is a prescription medicine used to temporarily make moderate to severe frown lines, crow's feet, and forehead lines look better in adults. Effects of Botox Cosmetic may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness may be a sign of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk.

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