By Lori Pilger
Lincoln Journal Star, Neb.
LINCOLN, Neb. — A Nebraska man serving a life sentence has lost his lawsuit against two prison wardens and the director of prisons, alleging they have kept him from having parenting time with his young son because he was conceived by a prison staff member.
James Price, 50, this month filed notice he will appeal the decision.
In September, Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen ruled in favor of Barb Lewien and Shawn Settles, wardens of the Nebraska State Penitentiary and Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, respectively, and Rob Jeffreys, who heads the prisons.
Jacobsen said the boy, who is on Price’s authorized visitor list, has had 38 in-person visits between March 3, 2024, and April 21, 2025, and the visits have continued since Price’s transfer to the prison in Tecumseh.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that the department has restricted the plaintiff’s phone or video contact with (his son), so long as that contact is through an individual on the plaintiff’s authorized call list,” the judge said.
Price, who has been incarcerated since he was 19, alleged in the lawsuit filed last year that the Department of Corrections had barred him from communicating with Samantha Cedillo, a former prison staff member who gave birth to his child, effectively ending his parenting time with the boy, then 2.
At the time, Cedillo was on probation for attempted sexual abuse of an inmate while she was working at the Omaha Correctional Center in 2022, where Price was an inmate at the time.
Inmates, by law, cannot consent to sex when they are incarcerated.
Price later was moved to the Nebraska State Penitentiary but since has been transferred to Tecumseh.
Assistant Nebraska Attorney General Joseph McKechnie, who represented the wardens and Jeffreys, said Price was restricted from communicating with Cedillo, consistent with prison policy, because she was on probation for a felony.
He said Price attempted to circumvent the restriction by engaging in three-way calls with Price’s brother and his brother’s girlfriend, which aren’t allowed.
At a hearing in July, Price alleged that blocking him from communicating with Cedillo was interfering with his relationship with his son, who is too young to make a call himself.
And he challenged his move to Tecumseh, which he alleged was in retaliation for filing the lawsuit.
McKechnie asked the judge to dismiss the case, saying Price’s move to Tecumseh had been based on his custody level. He said prisoners also do not have a constitutional right to unlimited phone use or to visit with any particular person.
In an order last month, Jacobsen said a reasonable factfinder could not infer Price’s transfer was retaliatory merely because he had filed a grievance seven months earlier.
Neither could they infer that it was retaliation to restrict his contact with Cedillo and members of his family, the judge said.
Jacobsen said, while Price disputed whether his conduct violated the prison’s policies, he hadn’t disputed making the calls to others and talking to Cedillo.
He said the undisputed evidence shows that the prison has not limited Price’s ability to develop close relations with his son.
“The court does not doubt that it is difficult for the plaintiff to ‘co-parent’ a toddler from prison. But that is a consequence of the fact that the plaintiff is serving a life sentence for murder,” Jacobsen wrote in the order.
Price is serving a life sentence plus 5 to 10 years for felony murder in the 1995 killing of Curtis Patterson in Omaha.
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