A former inmate at the Delaware County prison is suing the county after he says he was brutally assaulted and stabbed on August 28, 2022, a stabbing which he says the county had the ability to protect him from but failed.

Abdel Anderson-Myles, now 28 years old, is seeking a minimum award of $150,000 or more for the knife attack in which the identity of any assailant was apparently never determined.

In the complaint, Anderson-Myles says he was incarcerated for a sexual assault “when he was eighteen years old while the victim was seventeen years old.” He and his attorneys go on to allege that a specific correctional officer “knew that violent attacks from other inmates were not uncommon upon inmates with sexual assault convictions” and essentially used that knowledge as a threat.

When Anderson-Myles expressed concerns about not getting his medically required insulin on time as well as concerns that he would soon be attacked, the correctional officer allegedly said, “I’m going to tell the wrong people the reason why you’re here.”

Broad + Liberty has obtained pictures of Anderson-Myles in the minutes following the attack. The pictures were provided by a source with intimate knowledge of matters in the prison. The source, who is known to Broad + Liberty, is not named because of fears of retaliation. Broad + Liberty is also not embedding the pictures into this article because they may be disturbing to some viewers. Pictures one, two, and three can be viewed at the links provided. Faces have been blurred. 

The prison’s management handover in February 2022, from being privately run to government-run may have played a role in the events, according to the suit. 

(Note: While the transfer of power was formally recognized in April 2022, Broad + Liberty assumes the government took control of the facility when the government’s own warden, Laura Williams, began her role on Jan. 31, 2022.)

“At the time of the attack on Plaintiff…[Warden] Laura Williams, had recently terminated many employees, and as a result, the Prison was understaffed, creating many procedural issues including, but not limited to, safety issues,” the suit says.

While it is certain that the county fired a number of former correctional officers as part of the management takeover, it’s unclear to what extent those firings affected the overall staffing levels of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility at that time.

Several unionized officers who were let go shortly after the county took the management reins filed suit in March claiming their civil rights were violated and that the county was union busting. Additionally, the county spent just shy of $1 million on consulting contracts to help boost staffing in its first year of managing the prison.

But determining the needed level of staffing is still imprecise, largely because the prison stopped reporting staffing percentages as part of the monthly Jail Oversight Board meetings, something required when the last private contractor, GEO, managed the GWHCF.

Anderson-Myles’ suit is just one of many that are beginning to pile up at the GWHCF’s front door.

The family of Elliot Funkhouser is suing the prison after Funkhouser was allegedly killed by his cellmate. A corrections officer at the time later told Broad + Liberty the prison violated protocols by putting the two inmates together.

The mother of a suicide victim at the GWHCF is also suing the county. In that case, a Broad + Liberty exclusive showed that the remote control lock to the inmates door malfunctioned, which possibly cost precious response time. That report also showed the facility knew of problems about that particular door weeks before.

The county did not respond to a request for comment about the new lawsuit.

Warden’s qualifications

In a separate issue, newly obtained documents show the county may have sidestepped its own qualification requirements when it hired Laura K. Williams to be the county’s first warden after deprivatization.

The job requirements for the warden position, according to the county’s job posting, asked for “[e]ight years of experience as a Correctional Officer in a prison which includes five years of experience supervising the activities of Correctional Officers, two of which have been at the Correctional Captain level.”

Williams does not appear to meet that qualification.

According to her resume which was obtained via Right to Know Request, Williams began her career as a substance abuse counselor at the Allegheny County Prison (ACP) from January 2014 to September 2015. She then became the director of substance abuse programs until February 2017.

From that point, Williams served less than a year as the ACP deputy health services administrator. Finally, in September 2018, she was appointed chief deputy warden of healthcare services, a role she held until she became the Delco warden on January 31, 2022.

No part of her resume indicates she has any “ground-level” correctional officer experience of dealing with inmates, such as working with them as part of the intake or discharge process, maintaining safety in inmate common areas, making cell-to-cell transfers, supervising meal times, and the like.

Williams tenure at the ACP is notable for many reasons, not least because it was a hotbed of controversy, especially in the years in which she served as deputy warden of healthcare services.

The county declined to comment on questions about Williams’s qualifications, and the county’s requirements.

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports