Aerial view of the John A. Bell Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix, formerly Golden Grove, where a former inmate alleges staff placed him in a recreation yard where he was brutally assaulted. Photo Credit: ERNICE GILBERT, V.I. CONSORTIUM.
A former Golden Grove inmate has sued the V.I. Government and several Bureau of Corrections officials, alleging that a correctional officer deliberately placed him in a recreation yard with three inmates she knew intended to harm him, then stood by as the men brutally beat him with objects.
In a complaint filed in V.I. Superior Court on St. Croix, Donnie Heywood Jr. names the Government of the Virgin Islands through the Bureau of Corrections, BOC Director Wynnie Testamark, former Assistant Warden Omar Samuel and correctional officer Tyiesha Benjamin-Samuel as defendants. The lawsuit identifies Samuel and Benjamin-Samuel as husband and wife…