October 2020

As I write this, on 19th October 2020, Riordan will be in his cell, with his cellmate, at North Lake Correctional Facility, Michigan. Today happens to be the two hundredth day he has spent there. Of the four thousand eight hundred hours spent at the correctional facility, since April 3rd, Riordan has been allowed less than an hour of it beneath sunlight. For the remaining four thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine hours his sole source of light will have been artificial, predominantly from fluorescent strip bulbs. Vitamin D is critical for human health. The major source of vitamin D for us is sunlight. Sunlight is the source of all life. To stop people, at least those who present no threat to others, from having access to it is a disgrace. To do so in this pandemic, when vitamin D has been found to have a profound effect in recovery, should one contract COVID-19, is an abomination. For a man to have to endure this in a prison designed for violent offenders, when he himself has been convicted of a financial crime, is painful to consider. [edit Nov. 25: Prisoners are said not to have been given vitamin D supplements either since May]

For the majority of the time within this building, up until recently, the sole moments in a day Riordan would have spent outside of his cell would have been those walking to and from, as well as sat or stood in, the telephone room from where he can call his wife, family, and legal representatives, for up to half an hour a day. The cell he is in contains a slim bunk-bed, one atop the other, and a single-unit metal toilet and sink. The extraordinary length of time confined within this cell, something that all inmates have had to endure, is ostensibly to stop the spread of COVID-19. Ostensibly, because it is an all-too-expedient excuse for the GEO Group who own and operate the jail. Of course, prison operators do have to employ stringent measures to battle the virus, but having been privy to negative outcomes and heard spurious statements from this operator, I am suspicious of the situation. To prevent access to sunlight and fresh air, also a necessity for general health and especially in fighting COVID-19, negates the preposterous claim of the GEO Group that has been given when they have repeatedly been questioned about the state of the prison environment:

“We take our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees with the utmost seriousness.”

The GEO group are a private prison operations company given license, seemingly free from concern or scrutiny, by the US Bureau of Prisons. As stated by a spokesperson:

“The Bureau of Prisons is not commenting on specific conditions or operations at a privately contracted prison”.

Further to this quote, found in Taylor Wizner’s article of May 6th 2020, on the Interlochen Public Radio’s website, Ms Wizner also states:

“The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) does not list any coronavirus data for its private prisons — all of which are Criminal Alien Requirement facilities, like North Lake, that exclusively house immigrants convicted of felonies.”

Ms Wizner has been doing a valiant job of reporting on the situation at the prison. The topics she has written about, as well as those of which Julie Norwood at Lake County Star and Felipe de la Hoz at The Intercept have also written about, are pertinent to Riordan’s situation.

The screenshot below was taken today from the Bureau of Prison’s webpage regarding North Lake Correctional Facility:

There is indeed an address, however, if one was to wish to contact Riordan, or any other of the one thousand six, seven, or eight hundred inmates (it is not clearly known how many are there), in the only possible way, that of mail service, then one should not get too ambitious…

This close family member, whose returned letter is pictured above, was fortunate indeed to have her letter back from this ‘INCORRECT ADDRESS’. Other letters have simply vanished.

NB: The numbers ‘9076’ pictured on the envelope are the last 4 digits of the extended 9 number ZIP code (official US postal protocol). This number was on the GEO Group website but the last 4 digits have since been withdrawn. However, it is still in evidence in such official directories as ‘The White Pages’ and ‘Dun & Bradstreet’, as pictured below:

Riordan’s wife discovered a little later, direct from Riordan, that there was an address (not available online except below), for the prison inmates, that offered the chance of a letter being delivered. This involved a PO Box. Whilst a couple of my letters have been delivered in this way, mercy indeed, I have had one go missing. I know of at least two other incidents where family members or friends have sent letters that Riordan has not received. It has been discovered that there are currently a number of letters being withheld from Riordan as they either have no return address written on them or that they may be contained within envelopes that, dare I say, are not white (note the returned letter pictured above does conform to these stipulations). Perhaps they do not adhere to some other arbitrary rule set by the GEO Group. There is no way of telling. It is most disheartening to have spent hours on a heartfelt letter for it to be lost to oblivion due to this Kafkaesque scenario. At least the GEO staff have had the pleasure of reading them. [Edit 10th December: There is no email service at this prison and one cannot transfer money from outside of the USA, somewhat absurd for a prison containing no US citizens]

As stated in Taylor Wizner’s Interlochen Public Radio article of May 19th 2020:

‘The company says allegations about complaint paperwork and mail delivery are untrue.’

Taken from: https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/post/new-hunger-strike-north-lake-correctional-facility-more-60-inmates-recover-covid-19

I am pleased however that the books that I, and others, send to Riordan, from amazon.com do arrive with him and he takes great pleasure in this. We are grateful for this as there is no access available to the mythical library at North Lake, of which prisoners have heard hushed murmurings, yet have not set foot in this hallowed space.

Riordan has also necessarily been roped in to a number of hunger strikes at North Lake C.I., though of course these seemingly didn’t happen in the “Righteous Sovereignty of Commerce & Officialdom”, where surely the motto is, ‘Quid est veritas?’:

‘GEO Group… says it is not aware of any hunger strikes at the facility and strongly rejects all the prisoners’ claims. It says outside groups are trying to advance a political agenda. “We take our responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all those in our care and our employees with the utmost seriousness, and we reject efforts by outside groups to advance politically motivated agendas in the face of the unprecedented health crisis facing our country,” GEO Group spokesperson Christopher Ferreira said in a statement.’

It is strange and underhand in itself that Riordan is even in this ghastly domain. One night, early in April, he was taken, along with hundreds of others, from Taft Correctional Institution in California, loaded onto a plane and sent to this current incarceration-station.

This happened not three weeks since the Californian government had issued a ‘Stay-at-Home’ order in the midst of a state of emergency caused by the pandemic. Felipe de la Hoz, of The Intercept, has written an excellent article (link below) regarding how ‘authorities transferred hundreds of people between shadowy immigration prisons… amid the coronavirus outbreak despite the fact that the Bureau of Prisons said it would stop transfers.’

Riordan had been in Taft Correctional Institution since September 9th 2019, the beginning of his incarceration. Our eldest brother David and his son had picked Riordan up from Los Angeles airport, driven him to Taft and dropped him off. In a sign of remarkable solidarity and love David then proceeded to relocate his home to the town and visit him near-daily, showing up to the prison on his scooter caked in dust, much to the amusement and pleasure of the jovial guards, having ridden there on desert tracks. David was left in the forlorn town as Riordan was moved on two-thousand miles north-east.

This is to say nothing of the fact Riordan shouldn’t even have been placed in California. He was given ‘solace’ by the judge, after having handed him an astonishingly harsh sentence, stating that he, at least, would be placed in a correctional institution near his family in Denver. It goes without saying this was not what transpired. Taft is over one thousand miles of driving from Denver. He continues to languish in Michigan, over one thousand two hundred and fifty miles of driving from Denver, having only seen his family once; they could only afford the one visit to Taft in pre-Covid times. This majestic and sorrowful trip involved a treacherous eighteen hour drive for his wife and five children, in a small two wheel-drive rental car, through the Rocky Mountains in a blizzard at night, the parched Mojave desert in the blazing day, and the dusk of an imperious Sierra Nevada, returning to the night having arrived at Taft after crossing the basin of the San Joaquin Valley.

Taft Correctional Institution has been closed as of late April. There has been some guff from officials about the building needing emergency upgrades but anyone having taken an interest in this story knows there are hidden ulterior motives. This is evidenced by the flagrant transfer of inmates during such a dangerous period. And to such an unprepared place as North Lake C.I. as evidenced in various news reports (see links below). At Taft C.I., Riordan was able to access a number of facilities and receive visitors. From the emails and letters we wrote to each other it seemed a place that could have a positive impact on its inmates. There was a library, a gym, plenty of outdoor space, and a computing room, among other things. Inmates were not locked in their cells at any point unless they had been up to mischief. Here, Riordan began organising and teaching a popular and successful course regarding such subjects as positivity, planning, motivation and negotiating. Prison guards would attend the course as well as appreciative inmates. All this is gone and he now finds himself in a medium & maximum security prison…

…near the northern borders of the USA heading into winter in the midst of a pandemic. His plea for compassionate leave, in the cogs of bureaucracy and the claws of false-hope for many months, requested because of his susceptibility to COVID-19 (having had a proven history of pneumonia and respiratory troubles) was of course denied by the same judge that had recommended that he should reside in the lowest-security jail near to his family.

Cameron Maynard, 19th October 2020

If you would like to write to Riordan he should receive mail (providing it is in a white envelope, has the return address and conforms to heretofore cryptic and unknown arbitrary rules) at:

Riordan Maynard #44844-013

North Lake Correctional Facility

PO Box 1500

Baldwin, MI 49304

United States of America

Although, as stated above, more than a few letters that have been written to him have not been delivered using this address. However, please do try Riordan would absolutely love to hear from his friends and family.

Please do take a look at the excellent journalism on the unjust situation at North Lake Correctional Facility being undertaken by:

Felipe de la Hoz at The Intercept:

NB. The first article listed, by Mr de la Hoz, is particularly searing and tragic:

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/14/coronavirus-immigrant-prison-taft-north-lake-death/

Regarding the transfer from Taft to North Lake:

https://theintercept.com/2020/06/21/coronavirus-criminal-alien-requirement-prisons/

Taylor Wizner at Interlochen Public Radio:

An important article regarding the transfer from taft to North Lake:

https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/post/immigrant-prison-baldwin-gets-california-inmates-some-prisoners-go-covid-19-hunger-strike

https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/post/prisoners-go-hunger-strike-baldwin-s-north-lake-correctional-facility

https://www.interlochenpublicradio.org/post/families-loved-ones-baldwins-immigrant-prison-coronavirus-information-hard-find

Julie Norwood at The Lake County Star:

https://www.lakecountystar.com/local-news/article/Coronavirus-concerns-grow-at-North-Lake-15245103.php