State Prison

The massive raid at Graterford state prison earlier this week grabbed the attention of the outside world, but the biggest show of force was the quiet, hurried transfer of a dozen inmates who wielded the real power inside the prison walls. More than the unprecedented raid by 650 state troopers and prison guards, more than the forced retirement of two top prison officials, more than the strip-searches of the 3,490 inmates and the cell-by-cell shakedown for drugs and weapons, the biggest symbol of change was the dethroning of the reputed leader of prison wheeling-and-dealing.

A former Philadelphia paratransit driver convicted of raping a woman with cerebral palsy was sentenced in Bucks County Court Friday to serve 20 to 40 years in state prison. David Desouza, 49, sat motionless as Judge Alan M. Rubenstein sentenced him to two consecutive 10- to 20-year terms for rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. Rubenstein cited the crime's "heinousness, its sheer, unbridled depravity, and the absolute horror visited upon the victim. " Rubenstein told Desouza: "You probably believed she would never tell anyone about this, and if she did, no one would believe her. . . . But she was not the perfect victim.

Joseph Taylor considers himself a man who stands up for his rights and those of his fellow prisoners. Prison officials consider him an incorrigibly hostile inmate. Because of his refusal to follow orders and his alleged assaults on guards, Taylor spent seven years in solitary confinement at the state penitentiary at Huntingdon. Two years ago, he was moved to an even more restrictive home. Taylor, 39, who is serving a life sentence for murder, became one of the first residents of Pennsylvania's new Special Management Unit (SMU)

SHE IS: Madeline Arrington SHE DOES: Housing rehab SHE SUCCEEDS: Through determination At first, Madeline Arrington wasn't sure she wanted it mentioned in the newspapers that before taking on her current post as an apartment building manager, she spent time in jail. But, on second thought, Arrington decided she had important messages to get out: About how quickly your life can fall apart. About picking up the pieces of your life and starting again. In 1982, Arrington, then 39 years old, a single mother of two daughters, then aged 18 and 9, made what turned out to be a fateful decision.

RE THE LETTER by Lauren Ukkerd of Broomall, "Dial P for Prison" (Aug. 16): Who or what gives her the right to judge letter-writer Harum Fox, let alone anybody else who's incarcerated about what we should or shouldn't have in prison without knowing our situation. Unfortunately, people fail to realize that not everyone incarcerated is a bad person, some of us just made bad choices and the wrong decisions in our lives that we are paying for now - and our families are paying for them as well.

Jerry Sandusky became a state prison inmate Tuesday with his transfer out of the Centre County jail, his home since he was convicted in June of child molestation. The former Pennsylvania State University assistant coach arrived early in the morning at the State Correctional Institute at Camp Hill, just outside Harrisburg, a state prison system spokeswoman said. He faces evaluation that will take a week or more before he can be assigned a security-risk level and sent to one of the state facilities as his "home" prison.

When Ryshaone Thomas was sent to prison in 2005, Linda Reis was outraged that one of the men who abducted, beat and strangled her daughter might be free someday. Reis wanted Thomas, 32, to die in prison. On Sunday morning, she got her wish. "It's funny how God works," said Reis, 54, of Mount Ephraim, N.J. "I really feel that things happen for many reasons. " Thomas, of Camden, was serving a 43-year sentence for the murder of Reis' daughter, Christine Eberle, on Nov. 12, 2001.

A Morrisville man pleaded guilty yesterday to a weeklong crime spree in which he stole at least five vehicles, drove one into the Delaware Canal, and escaped police custody through a bathroom window. Jesse N. Baker, 21, was given four sentences to state prison - with terms ranging from one to two years, to two to five years - for a string of auto thefts and other crimes in early June. Bucks County President Judge Kenneth G. Biehn said Baker would serve the sentences concurrently.

Elizabeth "Betty" Greenawalt embezzled more than $900,000 from her long-time employer and neighbor, robbing him of money that he could have taken into his retirement. Ralph Bucci went to Delaware County Court yesterday for Greenawalt's sentencing. Instead of seeking revenge, he offered forgiveness. "I do not seek a prison sentence on my behalf," Bucci told Judge James F. Nilon Jr. Joan Bucci, his wife, called it a difficult day for her. She mentioned Greenawalt's gambling addiction and said Greenawalt's actions had hurt the family emotionally and financially.

Gary Slick was good at what he did. He knew it - and he wanted others to know it, too. "I'm the best," he recently told a newspaper interviewer. After six years of stealing cars, he was having others do the stealing for him, the 19-year-old said after he was arrested in February by Philadelphia police for a car theft in Bucks County. He described himself as the "Godfather" of the 09 Posse, a gang of car thieves operating from the Tacony section of Philadelphia. When Philadelphia police returned him to Bucks County to face the car-theft charge, he promised the authorities information on several more thefts in return for a badge befitting his status: a state prison term.

A Lawnside man was sentenced to 23 years in state prison Friday for illegally possessing guns, cocaine, and prescription drugs. Reginald V. Brown, 37, who was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Irvin J. Snyder in Camden, had been found guilty by a jury in February of five criminal counts, according to a spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. After obtaining evidence that Brown was selling cocaine, state police searched his Gloucester Avenue home and found a cooler pack holding two semiautomatic pistols, a revolver, and a .38-caliber teargas pen gun containing a rifle bullet.

A Vineland, N.J., man convicted of fatally injuring his infant son in 2011 was sentenced Friday to more than a decade in state prison. The Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office said Ronald Cuff Jr., 20, was sentenced to 14 years on his conviction of reckless manslaughter and child endangerment in the death of his 2-month-old son. Prosecutors said Cuff caused the child's death by repeatedly shaking him. The child died a week after his maternal grandmother...

A POTTSTOWN high-school student allegedly had smoked pot and was texting when he veered across two lanes and fatally struck a jogger earlier this month, police say, and prosecutors hope to use his high to get a lengthier sentence. The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office on Thursday announced charges of DUI and vehicular homicide against Justin Jackson, 18. A news release notes that investigators found traces of marijuana in the Pottstown teen's blood shortly after the crash.

A LANDLORD WHO bludgeoned a tenant with a baseball bat after a dispute over rent - then built a coffin for his remains - pleaded guilty Thursday to third-degree murder. Miguel Davilla, 31, immediately was sentenced by Common Pleas Judge Linda Carpenter to the maximum 20 to 40 years in state prison. Davilla's road to prison began Feb. 28, 2009, when he tried to evict Ruben Woodsen, 53, from a Fairmount boardinghouse, on Croskey Street near Eastern State Penitentiary. While Davila was changing the door lock, Woodsen returned, a confrontation ensued, and Davilla struck him 10 times in the head and body with a bat, fracturing his skull.

IN THE blink of an eye Wednesday, an aggravated-assault trial was derailed on its first day after the victim's glass eye popped out on the witness stand. Right into his hand. Jurors gasped as a weeping John "Big Red" Huttick caught his fake peeper. Defense attorney Eileen Hurley demanded a mistrial, which Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Coleman granted. "It was shocking and unexpected. He caught it in his hand and sort of held it there," Hurley said. The mistrial was needed because, she said, "something as disruptive as that is a bell that could not be unrung.

Megan Galo, whose concerns about a Philadelphia charter school's operations helped land two of its ex-leaders behind bars, was sentenced to prison Monday for stealing money from the orthopedics practice that employed her. Galo, 48, of Abington, pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court to one felony count of theft by deception for stealing more than $100,000 from the Center for Advanced Orthopaedics on West Germantown Pike in East Norriton, where...

HARRISBURG - Gov. Corbett's administration is betting that it can maintain a lull in Pennsylvania's historically expanding inmate population as the state prepares to close two prisons in the western part of the state after canceling plans to build one and reopen yet another. The Greensburg and Cresson state prisons, with about 2,400 inmates combined, will be closed in the next six months. Many of the inmates will move to the newly built Benner state prison, a 2,000-bed facility near State College that was once envisioned as a place to help house the rapidly growing prison population.

HARRISBURG - The Department of Corrections is planning to close two state prisons in Western Pennsylvania and open one that was built a year ago, a state senator said Tuesday. Sen. John Wozniak (D., Cambria) told the Associated Press that a member of Gov. Corbett's administration had delivered the news to him earlier in the day. A department spokeswoman declined to comment, but Corrections Secretary John Wetzel plans a Wednesday announcement. Benner Prison in Centre County cost nearly $200 million to build but has been vacant.

THIS IS NOT how Colwin Williams pictured life as a free man after nearly two decades behind bars. Ten months after the 44-year-old was released from the state prison in Chester, Williams hoped to be in his own place, not in a second Philadelphia halfway house awaiting approval to move in with his mother. He wanted to be inching closer to a college degree, not forced to withdraw from most of his classes at Bucks County Community College when they conflicted with a mandatory violence-prevention program for ex-cons.

A South Jersey woman was fatally stabbed inside her Woodbury apartment Monday, said the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office. Police found Ramona Johnstone unconscious with multiple stab wounds about 8:30 p.m. in her unit at Woodbury Court Apartments, 240 South Broad St. Johnstone, 54, who lived alone, died at Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury. In 2004, Johnstone was a witness to an unrelated fatal stabbing outside of the same Woodbury Court unit, authorities said. Richard Santiago, 60, who also lived in the complex, stabbed a Mantua man during a fight, authorities said.