My name is J.C. Overstreet. My Federal ID # is 12744-042. My e-mail address is ejjcoverstreet@gmail.com.
These few pages contain only a summary of my story, and I swear under penalty of perjury that it is the truth.
As explained further below, due to my partial physical disability resulting from a severe spine injury, my doctors in the Bureau of Prisons' Springfield Medical Center Prison ("Springfield") used my medical condition as an excuse to essentially experiment on me (beginning in 2018) by supplying me every day, for years, with opioid narcotics, causing me to become severely addicted. This was done to me in spite of the fact that I was not a drug abuser when they got me started.
I remain an addict to this day due to the fact that the BOP will not make the effort to wean me from the opioids with which they have been supplying me for the past five-and-a-half years. This deliberate indifference for my health and welfare by the Federal Bureau of Prisons has involved illegally keeping me addicted to the opioids instead of placing me in the BOP's Medicated Assisted Treatment ("MAT") drug addiction program for inmates who are addicted to opioids, despite my begging to be enrolled in the MAT program. This cruel and unusual punishment has continued even though I am no longer in pain from my physical condition.
To make matters worse, in 2021, the Warden of Springfield had me put in a tiny solitary confinement cell in which I remained (alone) for nearly one year, because I obtained information about an illegal scheme that the warden was operating at Springfield, and I would not accept the bribe which was offered to me to remain silent and cooperate in keeping the scheme hidden. Because of my physical and medical condition, those 11 months in solitary confinement essentially became a form of subtle torture which left me crippled and mentally damaged.
I began serving my current federal prison sentence in 2010, at the age of 39. I pled guilty to selling cocaine, instead of going to trial, because I chose to take responsibility for my crime and repay my debt to society by serving whatever prison sentence was to receive from the Judge, which turned out to be a 19-year sentence. (I now have three years remaining to serve after a deduction for my good conduct credit.) I knew at that point of my life that I would spend the next many years in prison making a new man of myself so that when I emerged from prison I would become a productive member of society who would endeavor to work hard and honestly for the rest of my life and not make the mistakes I had made for so long, so that I can be the man who God gave me the potential to be.
Although I had abused drugs for many years as a teenager and as a young man--in and out of two separate drug rehab programs--by the time I began serving this prison sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Coleman, in 2010, I was no longer an addict. I had not taken any opiate drugs for the previous five years at that point in time. I was ashamed of the fact that I had dealt in cocaine resulting in this prison sentence, but it was my addiction to drugs which led me to that nasty business. I knew that if I could refrain from being an addict that I could refrain from selling drugs. In any event, I was proud of the fact that I had ended my opiate addiction, and I knew that I was on the road to success because of that victory over that addiction which was granted by God.
During my first seven years in federal prison, I never had a fight or any type of disciplinary problem. I was considered to be what is sometimes referred to as a "model prisoner," and a non-violent one at that. In fact, I had no history of violence in my entire life, and I have always been a gentle and quiet person who never developed a big ego. I was also in fair physical condition and good health when I began serving this sentence. However, I did not know that I had a severe congenital spinal stenosis in the areas of my neck and lower back, which had been worsening as 1 aged. I did not know at that time that such spinal condition predisposed me to serious injury, which is what happened in 2017, about 7 years into my sentence.
While I was standing in a hallway, another inmate snuck up behind me, mistaking me for someone else, and hit me very hard in the back of the neck with a blunt weapon. Because the stenosis of my spine already caused my vertebra to be too close to my spinal cord, that blow to the back of my neck pushed certain vertebrae against my spinal cord, resulting in nearly total body paralysis. I was taken to a hospital outside of the prison where a neurosurgeon performed a complex neck surgery, and several months later I was returned to prison. The surgery was not completely successful. I was able to walk a little with the use of a walker prop, but I had a balance problem which caused me to fall suddenly when I stood up from time to time. Because of the potential for further serious injury due to sudden and uncontrollable falls, I was taken back to the hospital.
Even though I had been in chronic pain from the time of the initial injury to the time I was taken back to the hospital the second time, the medical staff at the Penitentiary never gave me any strong narcotic pain relievers. Instead, I was given Tylenol-3 for a short time period. The Penitentiary doctors knew that I had a history of drug addiction, and they did not want to take the risk of causing me to become addicted to opioids again. in fact, my history of abusing opioids is clearly set forth in my Pre-sentence Investigation Report, which the BOP and its doctors have always had in their possession. I remained in the hospital for a couple of months the second time, and was then transferred to Springfield in early 2018, a prison which specializes in providing medical care to federal inmates with serious medical needs.
When I arrived at Springfield in early 2018, I alternated between the use of a walker prop to walk very short distances and a wheelchair for most of my mobility needs. I was still experiencing pain. In fact, my Springfield doctors knew that the first neck surgery had not been completely successful, and they knew that a neurosurgeon was planning to do a second surgery on the spine in my neck later in 2018. In connection with deciding how to treat me for my pain in the meantime, my doctors asked me if I had a history of drug addiction. I informed my doctors at Springfield that I was prone to opioid addiction, and that I had experienced a severe addiction problem for many years in the past, which I had finally overcome a few years prior to coming to federal prison.
I explained to the doctors that I had been in two separate drug rehab programs, and that I was afraid to take narcotic medications for longer than a couple of weeks because I would rather be in pain than take narcotics for a long-term period. (I was given morphine for some time while in the hospital at the insistence of the neurosurgeon.)
Even though the doctors at Springfield noted in my medical records that I had chronically abused drugs in the past and had been an opioid addict, these doctors told me that morphine would be appropriate for me because of my chronic pain, and they assured me that I would not be on it for the long-term. I told these doctors that I was afraid to take morphine, and that I would prefer to take Tylenol-3 for a little while, because that is what they gave me when was at Coleman Penitentiary for the same pain problem. The doctors told me that the morphine would help me feel much better than Tylenol-3 and that morphine needed to be part of my pain management program because of the type of injury I had.
These doctors assured me that it would be safe, and they promised that they would not let me become addicted to the morphine. Based on their assurances that I would not receive the morphine for longer than a few weeks, and based on their insistence that I needed to be on morpheme for the best healing results, and based on their promise that they would not let me become addicted to the morphine, consented to taking the morphine they prescribed.
was given extended release morphine which I took every evening, and I was given the instant release morphine every day, four times a day. The doctors kept me on this daily regimen of morphine for weeks, and weeks turned to months, and months turned to years.
I became addicted to the morphine before I even realized that I had become addicted to it. Once I realized that I had become addicted to the morphine, it was easy to justity it as being okay because my doctors were the ones giving it to me, and they told me that I could trust them, and not to worry. These doctors had turned me into an opiate addict even though they had promised they would protect me from that ever happening. I later learned that the doctors had lied to me about their intention to not allow me to become addicted to the morphine, and that they had actually given their assurances to me that they would not let me become addicted for the purpose of conning me into beginning the morphine regimen, knowing that I would become addicted to the opioid.
They intentionally chose to keep my system satiated with morphine (knowing that would become addicted to it), in spite of my history of addiction, because that was easier for them than having to practice real pain management medicine and because the Bureau of Prisons guidelines and BOP supervisory medical infrastructure allowed for that type of abuse. They put me on this opioid regimen with no end game in mind. They did this to me in spite of the fact that the medical standard of care with respect to liberally supplying opioids to patients in this country with conditions like mine (or similar to mine) had changed to militate against such avid use of opioids, and they did it knowing fully well that such free-wheeling conduct with respect to opioid distribution had been causing severe injury and death around the country on a mass casualty basis for several years. They intentionally caused injury to me in this regard, for their convenience, because they knew that they had a reasonable chance of getting away with it, thanks to the limitations of resources and lack of power that federal inmates such as I have to seek recourse for such medical misconduct.
They took the lazy and reckless approach of keeping me doped-up, instead of the prudent and medically standardized approach of supplying quality pain management which would have involved much more work on their parts, more diagnostic procedures, more careful analyses, carefully planned and supervised physical therapy on their parts, less narcotics, more non-narcotic analgesics, and outside consultation with experts in pain management medicine.
(My doctors were not experts in pain management medicine.) I fell for it because I really did trust these healthcare providers who told me it was all good to keep taking the morphine, that I would be okay, and that could know that I was doing the right thing because they said it was the right thing to do. I did not realize until much later just how severe may addiction had become.
June 27, 2021, three-and-a-half years after having been fed a constant daily diet of considerable amounts of morphine, the Springfield Warden had me thrown into a tiny solitary confinement cell which was about 7 ft. wide by 12 ft. long. This was done to me out of retaliation because I had learned that another inmate at Springfield who socialized with my group of friends had raped a 15-year-old girl in 2005 and had been convicted in connection with that atrocity and had served time in state prison as a result. (He had also been charged with Sexual Battery in 2002, but the charge had been dropped because the victim was too scared of him to testify.)
I also learned that this child molester had become endeared to the Warden of Springfield because he was illegally working as a snitch for the Warden and other officers at Springfield. I was thrown into solitary confinement because the Warden and his co-conspirator found out, from my personal mail which they had intercepted in the prison mailroom, that I had intended to reveal to others that this pet snitch of theirs was a sex offender--that he had molested a child.
After I had been in solitary for a couple of weeks, I was informed by one of the Warden's assistants who came to meet with me that they needed to keep me in solitary confinement for as long as this child molester continued to help them with their "special project" because they could not take the chance of leaving me in the general population where I could easily reveal to others that the Warden's pet snitch was a sex offender, because that would hurt the credibility of their snitch with regard to his ability to entrap the targets of the Warden's scheme and would thus make him useless to the Warden's cause.
This was due to the fact that inmates hate child molesters and do not trust them at all. In regard to the snitch's abilty to do his thing for the Warden and the Warden's co-conspirators, the snitch was 6'3", weighed about 260 pounds, was an athlete, and was a bully. He was a veteran prison inmate with years of experience. He was the kind of inmate that had power and was trusted by most inmates.
The Warden's assistant offered me a bribe of 200 flats of postage stamps (worth $2,200) used by inmates as currency in prison, to stay in solitary confinement until the snitch left Springfield and to not complain about being in solitary confinement or say anything about what T knew. I told him that I could not make it in solitary confinement for that long because of my crippled condition and my need for medical treatment, and because I was not able to exercise in the tiny cell due to the fact that the only exercise I was capable of performing was walking with a walker and wheeling myself in my wheelchair. (I had undergone my second major neck surgery in 2018, and I was still partially disabled and often in moderate pain, and I was still wheelchair bound because I needed one more surgery.)
I told him that my physical and medical condition would not permit it. I rejected the bribe. He told me that since I would not "play ball" with them that I should plan on having a "nice stay" in solitary confinement.
First, it was illegal for the Warden to banish me to solitary confinement for an indefinite period of time, because I had done nothing to be punished like that. Moreover, I had an undeniable First Amendment right to reveal to other inmates that the Warden's pet snitch was a child molester. The Warden knew it was illegal to do what was done to me, but he was apparently willing to take that risk because his scheme utilizing the Snitch was so productive for him, and he had already violated laws in connection with furthering that scheme, so the risk he took in connection with what he did to me was, in his mind, justified by the greater need to cover up the wrongful conduct which had already been committed by him.
Ironically, it was the Warden's snitch scheme, and using the particular inmate he used for his scheme, that constituted a crime [and an illegal conspiracy under 42 U.S.C sec. 1985(3)], and I was the one who the Warden wrongfully banished to solitary confinement in order to protect his illegal actions and those of his co-conspirators who assisted in the scheme. In fact, I learned that it was illegal for the Warden's pet Snitch to even be incarcerated in general population at Springfield because he was a dangerous inmate with such extensive violence in his history that he had been confined in the SPECIAL MANAGEMENT UNIT at Thomasville Administrative Penitentiary (the "SMU") when he was temporarily transferred to Springfield in 2019 to obtain knee surgery. The SMU is where the BOP keeps some of its most dangerous inmates.
The Snitch was supposed to have been returned to the SMU after recovery from his knee surgery, which he had successfully done by mid-2020. However, the Warden kept him at Springfield for an additional two years, until the middle of 2022. The irony of the matter is accentuated by the fact that the applicable law required that the Snitch, because of his security status and violent history, as well as his SMU status, be kept in Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) from the moment he arrived at Springfield until the moment he was transferred back to the SMU following his recovery from knee surgery in 2020.
Yet I was the one who the Warden illegally threw into solitary in order to protect the image of the Snitch who was illegally allowed to have the run of general population with carte blanche from the Warden to do as he pleased. For example, the Snitch had an improper relationship with one of the nurses at Springfield. (It was no secret.) The nurse was fired over the matter, but the Snitch--who was supposed to have been put in solitary confinement and immediately transferred from Springfield over such an incident (as any other inmate would have been under those circumstances)--was not punished.
Another example is the time that the Snitch intimidated and threatened a rooky correctional officer, and was not punished and was allowed to stay at Springfield, when any other inmate would have been severely disciplined and transferred from Springfield.
The Warden and his co-conspirators illegally kept me confined in the tiny solitary confinement cell for 319 days. It was a living hell. When they had me put in that cell, they knew that I was only two months away from what would be my third major spine surgery, which was to be very complex and dangerous. Even though the law required that I be let out of the solitary cell for at least one hour each day to exercise, they illegally punished me by refusing to let me out for any exercise. Daily exercise was critical for my physical rehabilitation and the healing process concerning my spine.
It was also critical for preventing my low-to-moderate pain from becoming severe and intolerable. My doctors insisted that I exercise daily. If I did not exercise daily over an extended time-period before I shot it up like that. I needed more morphine than I was receiving from the nurses every day, so I was able to have contraband morphine provided to me in a way that I can't describe here. I was able to shoot about two or three times more morphine into my veins than the amount I was obtaining under my daily prescription. It was great when I felt relief from the pain and suffering from that method, but when the high was over I felt like I had descended into a deeper hell. I went through this sweet/super-bitter cycle for months while I remained locked in the isolation room.
Around the time at which I had been in solitary for about 7 or 8 months straight, I could not take it any longer. The pain was unbearable because of being sedentary, unable to move about with my walker or wheelchair. My muscles had atrophied. felt like dying. I really hoped that death would come to me to take me out of the misery.
One day when the Warden made his round, I held up a note in the window of the cell door for him to read. The note asked him to tell his officer he had sent to meet with me that I was ready to "play ball" as his co-conspirator had asked me to do. (The one who had offered me 200 books of stamps for my cooperation).
The Warden nodded affirmatively and told me through the door that he would let him know, and that "we will get you out very soon." About ten days later, I was taken out of the tiny isolation cell and moved to an isolation cell that was three times larger, where I remained for an additional two or three months.
i knew at that point in time that the main reason that they had imprisoned me in solitary and had caused me to suffer so extensively by not allowing me out of the tiny cell for exercise and physical therapy, and had put me in that condition to suffer indefinitely, was to break me.
They wanted to break my spirit and my body so that I would come over to their side instead of remaining a threat to the secrecy of their illegal snitch operation which they were conducting with an inmate who was a child molester and who was not supposed to be at Springfield. They succeeded in what they set out to do to me.
I was finally released from solitary confinement on May 9, 2022, after 11 months of torture. I was released to return to general population because the Warden's snitch had been transferred back to the SMU one week earlier. One of the nurses who saw me shortly after I was released from solitary told me that I was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of my 11-month confinement and that I needed to get help because it was something that could be permanent. I do not exaggerate by saying that it was 11 months of torture.
Please understand why it was that way for me. The Warden and the officers who conspired with him sought to break me so that I would remain quiet and not say or do anything to jeopardize their snitch scheme. When I refused to accept the $2,200.00 bribe offered by the officer who met with me during my second or third week in solitary, they became bent on making it as painful and miserable for me as possible. In order to torture me for that purpose, these cruelty mongers did not have to commit affirmative acts of force, such as beatings, whipping me with a belt, food and water deprivation, or other tactics designed to overtly produce pain and suffering.
This was because my physical disability and sensitivity to pain from the adverse neurological condition caused by my spine created the terrible pain that resulted from that condition when I remained immobile and did not exercise or when I was confined in a small space that did not allow for any significant body movement and activity. The way was paved for them to use more subtle, yet nonetheless, torture tactics. They knew this and they took advantage of my condition to execute their plan.
Those tactics involved the cruel and unusual punishment of denying daily out-of-cell time for exercise and recreation, and denying me access to several months of critically needed post-surgery physical therapy. Those illegal denials of critically needed exercise and therapy were combined with the tactic of confining me in a tiny solitary cell, by myself, for 319 consecutive days, and intentionally saying things to me to make me think that I would be in that isolation cell for years. This was psychological torture as well. I had really hoped I was going to die, because I saw no end to it, especially after the Warden's assistant told me that I was going to be in that tiny cell until the Snitch left Springfield.
The Snitch had already been there for two years past the time he was supposed to have been returned to the SMU. So, when weeks in solitary turned to months in solitary, my mind constantly whirled with thoughts that my destiny involved solitary confinement with no end in sight.
After being released, I filed a BP-9 administrative complaint, and the Warden's response to it contained falsehoods which have exposed him to legal consequences which will be determined later. I then filed a BP-10 complaint with the Regional BOP Office, and because of the BOP's exposure in this matter, the Regional Office refused to respond, even though a response is required by law. I have also filed a BP-11 with the BOP Central Office in Washington, D.C., and have not yet received a response.
Pursuant to my request for a transfer away from Springfield and the evil that existed there for me, I was transferred to Federal Medical Center-Fort Worth in October of 2022. However, because I was so severely addicted to the morphine when I left Springfield, my doctors at FMC-Fort Worth were compelled to continue providing opioids to me, changing the prescription from morphine to six Percocet pills daily.
This is due to the danger to my health and well being from withdrawal syndrome in the event of sudden discontinuation of opioids.
But I have been begging these doctors at FMC-Fort Worth to simply put me in the MAT program here and wean me off of the strong opioid narcotics, and they have been ignoring my requests. They apparently want to keep me doped up even though I am no longer in pain and I have been progressing with my exercises and healing.
So, here I am, crippled and dependent on opioids, thanks to the BOP.
Somebody, please help me bring an end to this nightmare.