Ex-Maj. Budd lands in Oklahoma transfer center

With good time, the projected release date is Aug. 4, 2012.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The former Mahoning County Sheriff's Department major convicted of inmate abuse has been moved from a Cleveland-area jail to a federal transfer center in Oklahoma.
Michael Budd, 44, of Boardman had been incarcerated at the Bedford Heights jail, about 15 miles southeast of Cleveland. He arrived at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City at 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, said Michael Truman, Bureau of Prisons spokesman in Washington, D.C.
Way station
Truman said the typical stay at the Oklahoma facility, a way station of sorts, is three to six weeks. Inmates are then moved to the federal prison designated for their security needs.
Last week, ex-Warren lawyer Maridee Costanzo, 47, was sent to the Oklahoma facility and then transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. She pleaded guilty in August in the murder-for-hire plot of Warren attorney Roger Bauer, her estranged husband, and received an eight-year sentence.
Budd was remanded to the custody of U.S. marshals immediately after his sentencing in Cleveland federal court on July 22. U.S. District Judge Lesley Brooks Wells sentenced him to 97 months for violating the civil rights of three jail inmates and obstructing justice.
Budd's projected release from prison, with good time, is Aug. 4, 2012.
No freedom
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.
Last month, Judge 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.
Budd was indicted in October 2004. He was demoted to deputy and remained on the payroll until March, when he resigned.
His crimes
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