CRIME Ex-major sent to Atlanta Budd will serve sentence at high-security prison

New inmates work as orderlies and clean toilets for 12 cents an hour.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- No laid-back federal prison camp for Michael Budd -- the ex-major for the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department is at the high-security U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta.
Budd arrived at the penitentiary Monday, said Michael Truman, Bureau of Prisons spokesman in Washington, D.C. Budd, 44, of Boardman, had been at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City.
On July 22, he was sentenced to 97 months in prison for violating the civil rights of three jail inmates and obstructing justice and remanded to custody that day. Until the transfer to Oklahoma on Sept. 21, he was at the Bedford Heights jail, about 15 miles southeast of Cleveland.
Crimes of violence
Because Budd's convictions include crimes of violence, he was designated for a high-security penitentiary instead of a medium-security prison or low-security camp. Federal penitentiaries have the highest staff-to-inmate ratio and maintain close control of inmate movement.
With good time, Budd's projected release is Aug. 4, 2012.
New inmates at the Atlanta penitentiary are typically assigned jobs as orderlies and work five days each week, 71/2 hours per day, Truman said. Orderlies are paid 12 cents per hour to work in their own housing units mopping floors and cleaning toilets and showers and so forth, he said.
Truman said there's a waiting list for inmates who want to work in the penitentiary's UNICOR factory. UNICOR is the trade name for Federal Prison Industries, which makes goods and provides services, mainly for the federal government.
Factory workers at the Atlanta penitentiary, paid 23 cents to $1.15 per hour depending on job assignment and skill, make mattresses, mail bags for postal carriers and camouflage military uniforms, Truman said.
Motion for release
Budd's lawyers had filed a motion for release pending appeal, saying, among other things, that he has strong community ties and poses no flight risk. Federal prosecutors objected, calling him a flight risk and danger to the community.
In August, U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells, in a five-page order, denied Budd's motion for release, saying it failed to satisfy even the initial legal criteria required.
The judge said Budd's acts betrayed a public trust.
She said the evidence on each of the four counts was sufficiently strong, and none of the arguments presented by his lawyers is likely to result in reversal on appeal.
Budd was indicted in October 2004. He was demoted to deputy and remained on the payroll until March, when he resigned.
Found guilty
In March, a jury found Budd guilty of obstructing justice, one prong of the two-prong first count in his four-count indictment. Jurors offered no verdict on the second prong of the count, which alleged conspiracy to deprive an inmate of his right to be free from excessive force. The jury deadlocked on the remaining three counts of civil rights violations. Budd was found guilty of those counts at a second trial in April.
Budd was convicted of covering up his part when an inmate was beaten for a second time by guards and for personally beating two other inmates. The crimes occurred in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
meade@vindy.com