Inmate property claims cost thousands
A corrections department audit found the state pays an average of $60,000 a year to replace personal items
PORTLAND — Inmate Nathan J. Bennett figured the state owed him for improperly confiscating 250 pages of pornography from his cell at Two Rivers Correctional Institution.
State officials agreed. Last March, they cut him a check for $125 — a month after he finished his sentence.
Inmate Todd A. Ritchey, serving time for assault, insisted that corrections officers at the state prison in Ontario damaged his television set when they searched his cell in March 2009.
Five months later, state officials paid him $260 — the cost of a new one.
And inmate Paul M. Moore for months demanded that corrections officials replace sunglasses missing from his cell.
A state judge ultimately ordered that Moore be paid $215 — plus $3.29 in interest.
