A Letter From FCI Seagoville: How the Prison Failed to Stop COVID-19

In July 2020, a man held at FCI Seagoville in Texas wrote to us about the COVID-19 outbreak there. He described staff who took off their masks, transfers brought in without testing, and a compassionate release request a judge denied before he caught the virus himself. His letter is below.

Update (October 2026): This letter was written in July 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak at FCI Seagoville in Texas. It is one person's account. We have not independently confirmed the events it describes.

Dear Brandon,

I read the article about the COVID-19 outbreak at Seagoville. I want to add a few facts:

1. When COVID-19 first broke out in the U.S., I told our warden, Warden Zook, that if her staff kept taking off their masks around inmates, it would break quarantine. There was no response and no action.

2. I have served over 13 years and will get out in 9 to 15 months with good time. I asked Warden Zook for compassionate release because of my chronic asthma. I have had norovirus and pneumonia twice, and I did not want to catch COVID-19. The warden was slow to respond, so I filed in federal court in Michigan. Judge Janet Neff denied my request based on the sentencing factors, finding I was a threat to the community. I have no prior record. This is my first offense. How am I more of a threat now than I will be in a year? I have since tested positive for COVID-19.

3. Seagoville staff recklessly moved people around without testing them. My building is small, with 180 men. We had very few cases until they brought in 10 people without testing them. We protested, and they finally tested them. Six were positive. After that, men in our building got sick fast.

4. Obviously this illness causes severe fluid loss. When inmates asked for Gatorade to replace electrolytes, they were told that the assistant warden said they couldn’t have it, even though there were seventeen pallets of it in the kitchen purchased for that reason.

5. Most of these buildings have no air conditioning so we suffer through days of 100-105 temperatures every summer. Even so, no staff office or work area lacks air conditioning. Now since protesters have shown up, advocating that prison lives matter, we suddenly get portable air conditioning.

6. Even at this late date when most of the compound has gotten the virus, staff are still taking off their masks and exposing us.

The bottom line is this: no inmate has had any contact with the outside world, unless there is a medical emergency. Yet the B.O.P. controls that movement, so the only way the virus could get on the compound is through staff. Further, there was a study years ago using college students, with half posing as guards and half posing as inmates. They had to stop the study due to the level of cruelty that was displayed. And that was a study. Can you imagine the level of indifference and hostility that happens in real life situations? I have been told that I am an inmate and that I have too many rights. That I should not be eating in the kitchen but out of my locker. I have seen staff beat and gas inmates who were not resisting.

The measure of a country is taken by how it treats its POOR, INFIRMED AND INCARCERATED. America is severely missing the mark by turning a blind eye to its less fortunate. Lady Justice is no longer blind when sentences are lengthened or restrictions are added for the unpopularity of a crime. There are those who NEED to be closely monitored because their actions have harmed others severely. But, ALL U.S. citizens deserve the right to work their way to a level of restoration that they enjoyed prior to incarceration, or else they have NO HOPE, and then they have no reason to strive to become productive citizens. The people are creating or reducing TOMORROWS crimes, by their actions TODAY.

This article was submitted by an anonymous inmate.

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