Two wardens put on leave over inmate stabbing incident

Brendan Riley

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000 | 8:49 a.m.

CARSON CITY - Two top administrators at Southern Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas are on paid leave pending a probe into an attack on an inmate who had asked to be isolated from other convicts.

Nevada Prisons Director Bob Bayer confirmed Wednesday that the prison's two associate wardens, Larry O'Halloran, 47, and Erlton Lawrence, 64, are both on administrative leave.

"That just means we need time to look into something and that's what we're doing," Bayer said. "It doesn't reflect negatively on them at all."

Bayer also said he knew nothing about reports that the two wardens faced allegations of trying to alter paperwork on the case.

"That has never been mentioned to me," Bayer said. "That has nothing to do with what we're looking into."

Asked whether investigators were trying to determine why the convict, apparently a witness in a pending court case, hadn't been placed in protective custody as requested, Bayer declined to elaborate.

"We're looking into the circumstances, but I'm not going to go into the details," he said. The prison's inspector general, Rod Countryman, is investigating the matter.

The inmate, who wasn't named, suffered minor injuries in the attack. Bayer said the convict's "very minor puncture wounds" needed nothing more than disinfectant and a bandage. He also said the inmate's name couldn't be released because that might make him more of a target.

Southern Desert Correctional Center, a medium-security prison that houses nearly 1,600 inmates, is in Indian Springs, just north of Las Vegas.

Just last week, former inmate George Butler sued officials at the prison and alleged that they failed to protect him from other inmates who beat him in October 1997 and rendered him a quadriplegic.

Butler's lawsuit alleges that when he was serving time on a burglary conviction, he suffered spinal damage during a 30-man fight on Oct. 15, 1997.

The lawsuit alleges a lack of security measures at the prison, inadequate staffing, poor pay for prison staff, overcrowding and failure to give guards the equipment needed to prevent prison fights from escalating.