Fed judge plans to dismiss Pittsburgh prison suit

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal judge says she plans to dismiss a wrongful firing lawsuit filed by for administrators at the state prison in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti expressed her intentions at a hearing Wednesday.

The prison’s former superintendent, Melvin Lockett, and two other administrators were fired during an investigation that eventually saw several guards charged with physically and sexually abusing some inmates.

At the time of the firings, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said the state wanted to take the prison in a “new direction,” without referring to the investigation.

The plaintiffs claim Wetzel’s statement made them sound complicit in the sexual assaults, but the judge told the parties she planned to dismiss the suit after saying she agrees with the state that no such link is implied.