ME- Inmate's death ruled a homicide

6-10-2009 Maine:

WARREN (June 10): Maine State Police have ruled that the April 24 death of an inmate at the Maine State Prison was a homicide.

Sheldon Weinstein, 64, from New Hartford, N.Y., died of blunt force trauma, the state Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Wednesday.

Weinstein suffered the injuries while at the prison, according to a news release issued Wednesday by Maine Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland.

Weinstein had been sentenced in October to eight years in prison with all but two years suspended for gross sexual assault against a 7-year-old. Before his incarceration, he had been living in Berwick, where his criminal offense occurred.

He had been transferred to the Warren prison from the Maine Correctional Center in Windham eight days before his death.

Maine State Police detectives have been coordinating the investigation with Department of Corrections investigators and have interviewed a number of inmates and corrections personnel since the death. The autopsy was conducted on April 26 and the State Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Wednesday that the cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Three employees of the Maine State Prison are on paid administrative leave as an investigation continues into the death of the prisoner.

Prison Warden Jeffrey Merrill did not go into details but said it was not uncommon to place employees on leave during an investigation. He said last week that once the investigation was complete, a decision would be made on whether other actions needed to be taken.

The warden could not be reached for comment Wednesday after the state police announced the homicide determination. ..Source.. by Stephen Betts, The Herald Gazette Associate Editor

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Police: Child molester’s death ruled a homicide

6-10-2009 Maine:

WARREN, Maine — Just four days after his April 16 transfer to the Maine State Prison in Warren, Sheldon Weinstein suffered the blunt force injuries that would kill him.

On Wednesday morning, the Maine State Police said Weinstein’s April 24 death was a homicide.

Weinstein, 64, of New Hartford, N.Y., was serving a two-year sentence for gross sexual assault on a child in Berwick. Details of his death were scanty, and police said the investigation is continuing.

“These things unfold, and they don’t always unfold immediately,” Lt. Gary Wright of the Maine State Police said Wednesday.

After an autopsy conducted on April 26, the state medical examiner’s office confirmed Wednesday that the cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Wright said authorities had interviewed corrections officers, staff and other inmates. No one has yet been charged with the crime, and Wright said it isn’t the policy of the state police to discuss suspects, the weapon or the circumstances around the blunt force assault.

“We’re not concerned that it’s anything outside the facility,” he said. “We’re getting a pretty good grip on things.”

Three employees of the Maine State Prison were placed on administrative leave after the April 20 incident, said Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Department Of Corrections.

“The decision to place employees on administrative leave [is] a result of a personnel investigation, not as a result of the Maine State Police homicide investigation,” Lord said.

Weinstein, who once owned a condominium at Samoset Resort in Rockport, was arrested last summer in New Hartford. He confessed to the sexual assault and was extradited to Maine, according to Berwick police Capt. Jerry Locke.

Locke said Wednesday that Weinstein sexually assaulted the child, a young girl, approximately between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2004.

Weinstein pleaded guilty last fall to a Class A felony charge of gross sexual assault on a victim under the age of 16, according to the New Hampshire newspaper Foster’s Daily Democrat. He was sentenced on Oct. 24 at York County Superior Court to eight years in prison with all but two years suspended. He also was sentenced to four years probation once he was released from the Maine state prison system. He initially served time at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham but later was transferred to the maximum-security facility in Warren.

According to Lord, the number of prisoner assaults at the Maine State Prison has been declining. She said she is “fairly certain” that Weinstein’s slaying is the first homicide at the Maine State Prison’s new facility in Warren. The old state prison building in Thomaston was the scene of some high-profile crimes, including the slaying of inmate Larry L. Richardson in 1990. Richardson was convicted of child molestation and was “unspeakably tortured” and finally murdered by his cellmate after a three-day “kangaroo court” conducted by inmates, according to a 1993 report from the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

“Overall, it’s a relatively safe facility,” Lord said of the prison in Warren.

In accordance with department policy, officials have reviewed the incident that led to Weinstein’s death in case there were “lapses in practice or protocols,” Lord said.

“We do have a responsibility for prisoners who either believe, or ask, to be placed in what we call protective custody — a housing assignment that assures their safety,” she said. “Our policy is to afford protective custody to all prisoners who need it.”

Efforts to reach a Weinstein family spokesman or locate an obituary were unsuccessful. ..Source.. by Abigail Curtis, BDN Staff

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Inmates attacked, killed sex offender

7-4-2009 Maine:

State police launch an investigation into the death of a man convicted of assaulting a young girl.

The state medical examiner has concluded that a 64-year-old sex offender found dead at the Maine State Prison in April was the victim of a homicide, apparently at the hands of one or more prisoners.

Sheldon Weinstein, who was in a wheelchair, died April 24 of blunt force trauma, according to the medical examiner's report. It does not specify which parts of Weinstein's body were injured.

The Maine State Police have launched a homicide investigation and the Department of Corrections is conducting a personnel investigation into the incident. Some prison workers are on administrative leave pending the outcome of the personnel inquiry.

Police say the attack took place four days before Weinstein's death, on April 20. He had been transferred from the Maine Correctional Center in Windham to the state prison in Warren on April 16 because there is a rehabilitation facility there, and he had been injured in a fall.

"We have interviewed numerous individuals, inmates and staff. We feel like we're starting to get our arms around things," said state police Lt. Gary Wright, head of detectives for central Maine. "There's information being developed. ... Every few days we get a tidbit here and there.

"We're hoping our other resources we're working with, like the crime lab, can provide us with some evidence to tighten up the investigation."

Wright said the facility is equipped with security cameras, but he would not comment further on evidence in the case.

Investigators and Department of Corrections officials would not say what kind of medical attention Weinstein received after the attack.

Weinstein's estranged wife, Janet Weinstein, said she has been unable to learn about the medical attention or whether he had expressed any fear for his safety.

"I don't know if it was a head injury or internal bleeding or what it was," she said by telephone Wednesday. "Over time it got worse and he died. Don't they have doctors there?"

She said Weinstein was keenly aware of the animosity prisoners felt toward someone convicted of gross sexual assault on a child. At Windham, Weinstein wrote that he kept to his room and didn't join other inmates for recreation time to avoid the "punks" who would harass him because of his crime, Janet Weinstein said.

Sheldon Weinstein, who is from New Hartford, N.Y., was arrested in 2007 and was serving a two-year term for sexually assaulting a young girl in Berwick.

Janet Weinstein was notified about her husband's death the night he died, though the prison official who contacted her said it appeared to be of natural causes. But then the official, whose name she did not recall, started asking questions, she said.

"He was asking questions of myself and Shelly's sister that sort of led me to believe that Shelly had asked for protection," she said.

In Windham, sex offenders are segregated, but they are not in Warren, although requests to be segregated can be made, according to Janet Weinstein.

"He would definitely have opted for some kind of segregation," she said.

The prison does not inform inmates of the crimes of other prisoners, but they often find out, officials said.

The prison's medical provider is Correctional Medical Services, which also provides care at other state facilities.

Associate Corrections Commissioner Denise Lord said the state recently renewed its contract with CMS at the prison for two years, and said that in each state facility that has been accredited by a national inspection team, including Maine State Prison, CMS has been part of that review.

Lord would not say whether the workers placed on leave from the prison are guards, medical staff or both. She said prison officials are troubled by the incident.

"I think I speak for the warden when I say everyone there wants a safe facility for everyone, not just some people," Lord said. "I think the testament to that is we have very few incidents of this magnitude."

Department of Public Safety Spokesman Steve McCausland said there is no indication that any guard is responsible for Weinstein's death.

Janet Weinstein said she heard nothing from Sheldon after he was transferred to Warren. He had fallen from a top bunk in Windham, breaking a shoulder and leg in multiple places.

"This could have been avoided. This was wanton disregard for his safety ... wanton disregard for his need for help after he was injured," she said.

She said police told her that one or more people would be charged in Weinstein's death, but she said that's small comfort since whoever did it is already in prison.

"What are they going to do to them, take their dessert away from them?" she said. ..Source.. by DAVID HENCH, Staff Writer

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Police: Child molester’s death ruled a homicide

6-10-2009 Maine:

WARREN, Maine — Just four days after his April 16 transfer to the Maine State Prison in Warren, Sheldon Weinstein suffered the blunt force injuries that would kill him.

On Wednesday morning, the Maine State Police said Weinstein’s April 24 death was a homicide.

Weinstein, 64, of New Hartford, N.Y., was serving a two-year sentence for gross sexual assault on a child in Berwick. Details of his death were scanty, and police said the investigation is continuing.

“These things unfold, and they don’t always unfold immediately,” Lt. Gary Wright of the Maine State Police said Wednesday.

After an autopsy conducted on April 26, the state medical examiner’s office confirmed Wednesday that the cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Wright said authorities had interviewed corrections officers, staff and other inmates. No one has yet been charged with the crime, and Wright said it isn’t the policy of the state police to discuss suspects, the weapon or the circumstances around the blunt force assault.

“We’re not concerned that it’s anything outside the facility,” he said. “We’re getting a pretty good grip on things.”

Three employees of the Maine State Prison were placed on administrative leave after the April 20 incident, said Denise Lord, associate commissioner of the Department Of Corrections.

“The decision to place employees on administrative leave [is] a result of a personnel investigation, not as a result of the Maine State Police homicide investigation,” Lord said.

Weinstein, who once owned a condominium at Samoset Resort in Rockport, was arrested last summer in New Hartford. He confessed to the sexual assault and was extradited to Maine, according to Berwick police Capt. Jerry Locke.

Locke said Wednesday that Weinstein sexually assaulted the child, a young girl, approximately between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2004.

Weinstein pleaded guilty last fall to a Class A felony charge of gross sexual assault on a victim under the age of 16, according to the New Hampshire newspaper Foster’s Daily Democrat. He was sentenced on Oct. 24 at York County Superior Court to eight years in prison with all but two years suspended. He also was sentenced to four years probation once he was released from the Maine state prison system. He initially served time at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham but later was transferred to the maximum-security facility in Warren.

According to Lord, the number of prisoner assaults at the Maine State Prison has been declining. She said she is “fairly certain” that Weinstein’s slaying is the first homicide at the Maine State Prison’s new facility in Warren. The old state prison building in Thomaston was the scene of some high-profile crimes, including the slaying of inmate Larry L. Richardson in 1990. Richardson was convicted of child molestation and was “unspeakably tortured” and finally murdered by his cellmate after a three-day “kangaroo court” conducted by inmates, according to a 1993 report from the Maine Attorney General’s Office.

“Overall, it’s a relatively safe facility,” Lord said of the prison in Warren.

In accordance with department policy, officials have reviewed the incident that led to Weinstein’s death in case there were “lapses in practice or protocols,” Lord said.

“We do have a responsibility for prisoners who either believe, or ask, to be placed in what we call protective custody — a housing assignment that assures their safety,” she said. “Our policy is to afford protective custody to all prisoners who need it.”

Efforts to reach a Weinstein family spokesman or locate an obituary were unsuccessful. ..Source.. by Abigail Curtis