IN HONOR OF GG??
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Inmate who threw feces gets 50-year sentence
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Saturday, June 28, 2003

HUNTSVILLE -- An inmate who threw his feces on a correctional officer last year has been sentenced by a judge to an additional 50 years in prison for harassing the officer.

Bobby Ferguson, 37, was convicted earlier this week of harassing correctional officer John Pope. The charge is based on a feces attack in January 2002 after Ferguson became angry when he was moved to another cell without his belongings.

Ferguson's case is the second such case to go to trial since the Texas Legislature passed a bill in September 1999 that made harassment and similar attacks on correctional officers a third-degree felony.

Prosecutor Kelly T. Weeks said Ferguson's sentence, imposed by state District Judge Erwin Earnst, was severe because of his previous offenses, which include a 1992 conviction for aggravated assault, a 1991 conviction for transferring a controlled substance, and forgery and burglary convictions in the 1980s.

Ferguson testified during his trial that Pope and another correctional officer had physically assaulted him. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice provided a video during the trial, which did not show an assault.

"The way the feces was thrown on Pope did not indicate it was an accident," Weeks said of the bodily waste, which was in a milk container. "Pope said that after (Ferguson) threw the feces he said, 'I told you . . . that I would get you.' "

Weeks said typically defendants in similar cases plead guilty and receive a 10- to 15-year sentence. She said Ferguson was offered a similar plea agreement, but he wanted to take his case to a jury.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union in Huntsville, said the 1999 bill was created to improve working conditions for correctional officers.

"I'm glad he got the time," said Brian Wilson, the union's executive director. "If I'd been on the jury, he would have done more time."