Fort Worth prison classified drug conviction as ‘violent,’ so woman missed early release

When the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the United States and crept into our prisons, then-Attorney General William Barr tasked the Bureau of Prisons with making a quick review of people who could be transferred to emergency home confinement to help lessen the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

Considerations for release included the vulnerability of the person to COVID-19, the security level the person was incarcerated in, the person’s conduct in prison and the danger level of their crime of conviction, according to a letter penned by Barr.

One of the people the government approved for release was Leslie Hee, a 49-year-old Colorado woman who was convicted of distributing drugs, a nonviolent crime. She is held at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, a federal medical center with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp.

There have been at least 745 COVID-19 cases among incarcerated women at the prison, according to BOP records. Six have died.

Hee has a perfect record — meaning that in the five years she’s been at Carswell, Hee has never been in trouble.

When she was told her name made the home confinement list, she was ecstatic that she would be reunited with her supportive family. But, as Hee sat in mandated quarantine before her release, she had a visit from a prison counselor.

The counselor told Hee that she had overridden the BOP’s decision to release her because she classified Hee’s crime as violent.

“The determination that her conviction was a crime of violence baffles me,” Hee’s defense attorney, Daniel T. Smith said. “She was convicted of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute a controlled substance. It was a prescription drug case. That is simply not a crime of violence.”

Hee has appealed the decision.

A spokesperson from the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on Hee’s situation, citing privacy reasons.

Despite Barr’s orders, both the Bureau of Prisons and Department of Justice have routinely resisted the use of compassionate release and home confinement. And, according to a message sent to a Carswell inmate in January 2021, the warden has the final say over whether an inmate can be released.

More than 24,300 people have been placed in home confinement since March 2020. The BOP declined to say how many of those people were formally incarcerated at FMC Carswell.

Hee has support for home confinement

When Hee found out she wasn’t going home, she was heartbroken.

She called her family and broke the news that she wasn’t returning.

“I can’t begin to tell you how horrific this experience was,” Hee wrote through a messaging system that allows people incarcerated at federal prisons to email with those on the outside. “I lost at least 20 pounds, couldn’t eat, suffered sleepness nights, and privately cried a lot.”

She began the appeals process in May 2020, but in August, Warden Michael Carr denied her appeal, once again citing that Hee was convicted of a crime of violence.

Hee filed letters from friends and family in her appeal that show their support. The letters were originally written and sent to the BOP when Hee applied for early release before the pandemic in 2019. They show that in the event of her release, Hee will be fully supported by her friends and family.

They also explain how Hee became involved in the prescription drug ring.

Hee led a normal life with her loving and stable family, her father and stepmother wrote. But when she began to experience extreme back pain, she was prescribed pain medication that led to her prescription drug addiction.

Hee became involved in the criminal acts to help support the addiction, the letter said.

They wrote that Hee became a grandmother two years ago and they believe she has paid her debt to society and that she will be successful in her release.

In total, Hee has served almost 10 years of her 15 year sentence. A discipline summary written in January 2020 says Hee “functions as a model inmate who mentors newly committed inmates.” The paperwork confirms that she has never been in trouble. She has completed dozens of classes and certifications.

Her daughter wrote in a letter that Hee’s life has changed dramatically since her arrest and that she’s determined to have a better life.

“My mother and my family fully accept the responsibility for the harm my Mother’s addiction caused other people, society, the legal process, the Courts, and most profoundly our family and herself,” Payton Scrivner wrote. “She also now fully understands the reason for her addiction.”

In one letter, a friend offered her a job as a operations manager at his electrical company.

One of the prison’s chaplains, Casey Campbell, also wrote a letter of support for Hee stating, “Ms. Hee stands out as a person who consistently takes the time to practice her faith and positively engage with others.”

He added that he would work with her outside of the prison because of the communication and organization skills she has. Hee currently works in the chaplain’s office as a clerk.

Hee’s crime of conviction was not violent by definition

Hee was indicted with seven people who were connected to a drug ring in Denver.

While federal agents investigated the group, they discovered two people had died after taking drugs they bought from the group.

One woman was found dead in a bathtub and the cause of death was accidental drowning, likely due to the amount of Oxycotin, cocaine and Ecstasy found in her system. A man was found dead of a drug overdose in Hee’s home with an array of drugs in his system, according to the federal court documents.

Though two deaths occurred because of the sale of drugs, the crime Hee was convicted of is not violent, as defined by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Handbook, attorney Daniel T. Smith said.

For a crime to be considered violent, there has to be an element of attempted or physical force against another person — or murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery and other offenses that don’t include selling drugs.

Hee’s “central file has never had an entry in it that would indicate her crime of conviction was violent until the counselor made that entry,” Smith said.

The warden, Michael Carr, denied Hee’s release citing the two deaths connected to her crime, despite them not having been violent, Smith argued.

“The facts in the law and BOP policy say he is wrong and I believe it won’t get rectified at the institutional level therefore my efforts to seek legal action are currently in process,” Hee said. “Needless to say, the process is long and rather arduous.”

Given the guidelines, Hee met the criteria for home confinement due to COVID-19, according to an email to Hee from her case manager.

It’s not clear to Hee or her attorney why the counselor would suddenly change the classification of Hee’s crime, other than possibly reading Hee’s pre-sentence report and making assumptions based on the two deaths, Smith said.

But in the year before Hee was determined eligible for home release, she became intertwined in a scandal based on false information. A chaplain had blamed her for having an improper relationship with another chaplain, Smith said.

It was believed the rumor was sparked in retaliation because Hee, a Catholic, was helping women who practice other religions.

“That situation was investigated by the BOP and determined to be unfounded, which means in the BOP language they could find no evidence to support it,” Smith said.

And, at the time Hee appealed the home confinement decision, the other chaplain could have stepped in and recommended that her crime not be classified as violent, Smith said. Instead, he told the warden that he felt he should disqualify himself from the issue because of the prior allegation, even though there was no truth to it, Smith said.