THIS ADDRESS ON A LONELY STRETCH OF HAMILTON COUNTY PRAIRIE IS WHERE CUSTOMS AND DHS AGENTS BUSTED A SHIPMENT OF DATE RAPE PRECURSOR CHEMICAL FROM CHINA
From an Island in the Corporate Texas Gulag – The sick man found it hard to fight back when the guards brought a very angry, very violent black man to his cell for what he and witnesses allege was the specific purpose of beating him bloody and senseless.
David Lee Newman, Jr., an aging Navy veteran who suffers from Gulf War Syndrome, panicked. He ran to the door to protest on January 25, 2016. when the LaSalle Corrections officers brought Clifton Curry, a black man with a history of hostility toward Newman. They had been together in a convalescent tank for some time earlier.
Curry made no secret of why he was there, according to a written statement by an eye witness named Roberto Rene Luna.
“I hope you can fight,” he shouted. “Yeah, I came in here just to beat your ass…”
“At this point I saw several guards standing outside the door watching,” Luna wrote. “I don’t know why they didn’t come in sooner, and I began to be concerned for inmate Newman’s life.” A fellow inmate named Andrew Tyler Fenske tried to call Curry off, but to no avail. Luna retreated to his bunk where he had “a clear view” of what happened.
The assault started when Curry punched Newman in the jaw where he stood at the door, shouting, “He’s not supposed to be in here. Open the door.”
Curry beat Newman to the floor, yelling, “Snitch on me again, bitch; snitch on me again.”
In his statement, Luna alleges that Curry left Newman severely injured in a “huge puddle of blood on the floor and blood splattered all over the walls, table, and door” of the tank. A guard came a couple of hours later to clean up the mess.
It wasn’t the first time the two men had clashed. Curry and Newman had a history, according to the veteran’s lady friend, Rachel Crutcher.
Following his arrest on the federal complaint on August 11, 2015, for operation of a manufacturing lab near the Hamilton County hamlet of Pottsville, where he allegedly “cooked” a key component of the “date rape” drug called Rohypnol, he had made the rounds of county jails, including Fannin County’s, which is operated by LaSalle Corrections, the same contractor that operates the Jack Harwell Detention Center at Waco. Following processing at the Oklahoma City Bureau of Prisons Transfer Facility, Newman was sent to Waco, where he faced charges in U.S. District Court.
A ‘FIASCO’ RECALLED, REMARKED
In that round of processing, he went without the important anti-rejection medication he is prescribed to keep his transplanted liver healthy. Many pathologists and internists believe that Gulf War Syndrome is caused by the regimen of military inoculations given soldiers, sailors and Marines prior to their service in that conflict. One common complaint associated with Gulf War Syndrome is severe hepatic inflammation that renders the liver function inoperative, requiring a transplant if the patient hopes to live.
His family recalls it was a struggle getting LaSalle officials to give Newman his medicince after he arrived at the Jack Harwell Detention Center, too.
“It was a fiasco getting him his transplant meds there. He went several days without them and got very sick,” said Ms. Crutcher.
“After numerous complaints to the US. Marshals, to the Assistant Warden Stacy King, and finally after David’s mother called down there and got ugly with someone on their medical staff, David was transferred.”
Part of the problem, she alleges, was the setting where Newman spent his time. He was lodged in a gladiator tank, a very large tank where very violent, very loud men argue – at the top of their lungs – day and night, smashing dominoes down on table tops, screaming threats at prisoners in other tanks, pounding on the door, fighting at the drop of a hat, the blink of an eye.
This was an aggravation to Newman’s condition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to Ms. Crutcher.
“Thank God his attorney finally listened to me and called and threatened to file a lawsuit if he didn’t receive his meds immediately.”
Since Newman was to be held in a medical tank, “allegedly that meant that he would have his medications brought to him in the tank (without) having to be taken to the infirmary. And also that he would be more closely monitored by the medical staff at the facility.
“They never brought medication to the tank once. It was David and three African American men, one of whom (Clifton Curry) eventually decided to threaten to rape David.”
The bullying went on for a month or more, and at one point, when Newman was taken to U.S. District Court on a Monday to consult with federal officials, a move that netted him a sentence of 10 years in the federal correctional system, Curry decided that since it wasn’t a court day for inmates facing federal charges, Newman, who was in conference with federal homeland security agents, must have been somewhere informing authorities of his, Curry’s, illegal activities. He put a “snitch jacket” on Newman.
It is Newman’s belief, and the conviction of his lady friend Rachel Crutcher and his mother, that a certain Sergeant of guards named Paul Massey is known for “dog fighting inmates for his own entertainment…
“And I believe that is what happened,” according to Rachel Crutcher’s statement.
The beating Newman took from Curry was allegedly arranged in retaliation for their complaints and the family’s demands for Newman’s medical attention and scheduled medication.
“After this beating Mr. Curry was not in any way punished other than to be put in gen pop (general population), where he still walks by and harasses David daily banging on the glass windows of his tank and threatening about how next time he won’t walk away,” Ms. Crutcher said in a written statement.
Warden James Duke, a veteran of the Mississippi State Penitentiary system, did not return a phone call seeking his reaction.
LOSING MONEY IN THE JAIL BUSINESS AND LIKING IT
All this activity has been carried out by a corporation that claims in the open setting of McLennan County Commissioners Court that it has yet to make any money off its contract, which they won in 2013.
Local officials are just tickled to have them. Said County Judge Scott Felton in glowing testimony after voting to continue the contract last June, “We’re glad to extend it with LaSalle because we trust them and they’re good business people,” he said, speaking as a member of the McLennan County Public Facility Corporation’s board of directors. “They pay the note payment on the bonds to pay for the jail and they’ve never missed a payment, even without making money.”
Felton said the jail has been losing money steadily since it was built because the prisoner population has not met expectations. Immigration officials have de-emphasized the policy of locking up undocumented aliens. The facility has capacity for 816 prisoners, but has housed fewer than 700 at any one time. During November and December of 2014, the average daily population fell to 445.
The contract extension approved by the county commissioners includes a provision that takes effect on June 13, 2016, stating the contract can be declared void after a 90-day notice period if the jail population falls below 575 prisoners for two consecutive months.
“[LaSalle is] a for-profit business, and they have to have some assurance that they can be able to hang on here without being financially punished until things change,” Felton said in reference to the 90-day termination provision. “It’s been a great relationship on both sides, and that was said right upfront.”
UNTIL THINGS CHANGE…
“Until things change,” then, LaSalle is comfortable with taking a financial beating, and their reasoning is sound, when viewed in the context of the three principal factors in commercial real estate development.
- Location
- Location
- Location
Jack Harwell Detention Center is next door to the McLennan County Jail, which is near the intersection of State Highway 6, a heavily trafficked route between the Houston metro area and Abilene, the Panhandle, and California – at I-35, the Main Street of the NAFTA auto manufacturing trade between Canada and Mexico, the Jack Harwell Detention Center is in position for convenient air connections at Texas State Technical Center, site of the Connally SAC Base, and the Union Pacific Railroad.
The Waco lockup is in an excellent position to serve the 68 counties of the Western District of the U.S. District Court of Texas, which sits at San Antonio and stretches to El Paso – halfway between Los Angeles and the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex.
Sheriff Thomas Parnell McNamara, Jr., is the eldest son of Thomas Parnell McNamara, Sr., the former Deputy U.S. Marshal in Charge for the Waco Division of the Western District Court – and a multi-generational Texas law man, carries on in the family business. He is retired from the same position his father held.
You might say it’s the family business.
But, then, like the fella said, you could just as well keep your mouth shut about all that.
No matter what you do, one must agree that reason dictates the truth of the matter. Sheriff Parnell McNamara is responsible as the Constitutional Officer who is charged with the ministerial duty by We The People of the State of Texas safely to keep inmates both convicted and awaiting transfer to correctional facilities, and those who have yet to make bail, no matter what kind of industrial development the city dads have in mind, or which corporate securities one may trade.
That is, “until things change.”
D’AFFAIRE NEWMAN, DAVID LEE, JR.
The David Lee Newman, Jr., affair came about through the works of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) investigation of three shipments from Puying Chemical Technology, Room 503, Number 35, Shanhai, China, 200232, to Nolte’s Naturals Flavors, 1186 FM 2842, Pottsville, Hamilton County, Texas.
Just like the British shipment of opium to the strife-riven provinces of Qing Dynasty China in the power vacuum that developed just prior to the “gear wheel” revolution of the Nationalist Chinese, chemicals from China arrive on American shores via clipper ships, but these are jet propelled by giant turbine engines; they have huge wings instead of wind-jamming sheets of canvas and fly non-stop far above the weather and waves below, striding between continents in hours instead of weeks.
They carry everything from Apple computers to household goods and garments bound for Wal-Mart, as well as just- in-time deliveries of aircraft and electronic components in the brisk trade promoted by the permanent most favored nation status granted by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 2001, an arrangement which guarantees low import duties and high volume quotas for Chinese goods. Corporate war lords find the trade in the chemicals that are used to make drugs as useful as their equally militant Chinese counterparts did in the days of the “treaty trade” enforced by the U.S. Navy’s riverine squadrons that plied the Yangtsze prior to the First War.
Homeland Security Investigators (HSI) Andres Gonzalez and Garret Huling, working with agents from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Immigration and Customs Enforement (ICE), intercepted a 27-kilogram package (approximately 59.4 pounds) delivered by DHL Delivery Services that was labeled on the manifest as Ethyl laurate.
A search of previous manifests showed two additional shipments of the same chemical.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, the empty containers were found in the garbage near the front gate to the property and “A presumptive test of the substance resulted in a positive for the presence of Gamma Butyrolactone, a precusor chemical used in the manufacturing of gamma-hydroxybutync acid. (GHB)…an addictive depressant used for its euphoric and sleep inducing effects…
“GHB has been commonly associated with other ‘date rape’ narcotics such as flunitrazepam (Rohypnol), being very easy to add to drinks when (an) unsuspecting vicim is vulnerable due to intoxication with a sedative, generally alcohol.”
The raid netted the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office seizures of $10,379 in U.S. currency, the residence and open land at the address, a 2009 John Deere tractor, a 2008 Kia SUV, $55,000 in U.S. currency from a bank account at First State Bank Central Texas and the contents of a safe deposit box at that institution.
The search turned up methamphetamine, marijuana, and the deputy noted that Newman has an ‘extensive criminal history.”
BADMOUTHING GHB ‘BAFFLING’ TO SOME…
In her statement, his girlfriend Rachel shared her impressions about Rohypnol – its use as a recreational drug.
“GHB has gotten a bad rap because of some people using it as a date rape drug. But by and large the community that uses it is using it recreationally. Do people use it and make bad choices? Well, definitely. But people use every drug including alcohol and then make bad choices. But I cannot fathom how a person could mistake the taste of GHB for anything else; it’s the absolute saltiest thing a person could ever taste…I know of athletes who use GHB to help them get better results; meth addicts who use it to get REM sleep and then stay up a few days longer; housewives who aren’t that into their husbands anymore but can do a little GHB and suddenly they’re not so irritated with the dude anymore. I also know some people who are hardcore addicts that drink 4-8 oz a day. Keep in mind the therapeutic threshold for a normal person like me or David is typically met at 3ml. On occasion, maybe 5 or 6ml, but one oz is 30 ml, so you can imagine how far out these people can get when they really get addicted to it.
“Even the local law enforcement folks seem pretty confused. They told me the reason it is illegal federally is that people have been raped. But I wonder how a drug that cannot be detected in a blood, urine, sweat, saliva, or hair follicle drug test was able to be associated to a rape? I’m not a scientist, and there is probably an explanation, but I am honestly not aware of it being used for that purpose, ever.” 
SHANGHAI’S GLITTERING BUND, THE FOREIGN TRADE ZONE WHERE EXPORTS ARE SHIPPED TO MOST FAVORED NATIONS