FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) - The former superintendent of a Virginia jail has been convicted on corruption charges for denying medical treatment to an inmate who suffered brutal attacks and giving preferential treatment to another inmate, including personally delivered ice cream, whose family made financial donations.
John Marshall Higgins, 62, was superintendent of the Rockbridge Regional Jail near Lexington until 2017, when he resigned after state police began an investigation of the jail. He also served two terms on the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors.
U.S. District Judge Norman Moon found Higgins guilty on three counts of denying an inmate his civil rights and three counts of honest services fraud related to his providing preferential treatment to the inmate.
He was acquitted on more than a dozen fraud counts alleging he illegally received thousands of dollars worth of free Viagra from the company that supplied the jail’s pharmaceuticals. Moon ruled that prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Higgins received the drugs for free.
Testimony during last year’s bench trial in Lynchburg revealed that Higgins turned a blind eye when two sex offenders were beaten and tortured at the jail. One of the inmates was regularly attacked, forced to eat and drink bodily fluids, bleach and excrement. He was sodomized with a shampoo bottle in one assault.
Despite the apparent and severe injuries suffered by the inmate, Higgins rejected for several days requests from his lieutenants at the jail to transfer the inmate to a hospital.
The fraud convictions revolve around the treatment Higgins gave to inmate Nicholas Hansel, who was sentenced to three years in prison for aggravated involuntary manslaughter and drunken driving. A prison sentence of that length almost always requires transfer to a state prison, but Hansel served his sentence at the local jail.
Testimony revealed that Hansel was given private use of Higgins’ office for family visits and was immediately transferred into the least restrictive part of the jail on Higgins’ order. He was allowed out for work release on holidays when his employer was closed. Higgins brought Hansel ice cream and frozen yogurt, and even changed the jail’s cable package to offer more sports channels when Hansel complained.
The judge found that Hansel received the preferential treatment in exchange for thousands of dollars in donations made by Hansel’s family to a scholarship fund run by Higgins’ family.
Higgins’ lawyer, Grady Donaldson, said Monday he was still reviewing the judge’s written ruling and unable to comment.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.