By Patrick Simonaitis
Star-Tribune
RAWLINGS, Wyo. — An African-American man who was a guard at the Wyoming State Penitentiary is claiming that supervisors at the jail did not do enough to change a racist and discriminatory work environment among staff members at the prison during the roughly three years he worked there.
Adrian White, through the Casper-based Ochs Law Firm, filed a federal lawsuit against the prison in Rawlins and the Wyoming Department of Corrections in February. The lawsuit alleges that White was subjected to racism and experienced retaliation for filing reports about those incidents.
This week, Chief Judge Nancy Freudenthal scheduled a pretrial conference in Cheyenne in May.
White was hired at the prison in July 2010 and resigned his position in August 2013. Throughout his time as a guard, he received a number of promotions and pay raises.
The former guard alleges several instances of racism by fellow guards, none of which received serious consideration from prison supervisors, he says.
Full story: Former guard sues Wyoming state prison, Department of Corrections