Controversy erupted during a Lancaster County Prison Board meeting Thursday morning over the Nov. 19 suicide of an accused child molester.

Warden Vincent Guarini maintained that the performance of correctional officers when they learned Luis Villafane was  hanging himself with a bed sheet in his cell was "appropriate" and their response was "immediate."

He also claimed that Villafane himself had requested to be moved to C-2 cell block, the disciplinary area also known as "the hole." He said the prisoner was "not on active suicide status."

But Pennsylvania Prison Society prison visitor Ron Harper Jr., of Stevens, countered that guards and inmates have told him Villafane was on "suicide watch" the week prior to his death.

"He shouldn't have been on a discipline block with the kind of problems he had," Harper said.

Harper also said Villafane had received a "severe beating at the hands of approximately four or five guards" two and one-half weeks before he was moved onto C-2 block.

But County Commissioner Scott Martin, chairman of the Prison Board, said that was not so.

"I was there that day," he said. "That man was not severely beaten."

Following the meeting, Martin expanded on what happened. He said Villafane injured himself when he fell while guards accompanied him to his cell.

Prison Board solicitor Ron Howard interrupted the discussion several times. "There is a potential for litigation here," he said and cautioned the board to stop talking about the matter.

Lancaster attorney Jeffrey Paul acknowledged Thursday afternoon that he is representing Augustina Villafane, Luis Villafane's mother.

Paul also represented John Eichelman, a Lancaster man who was accused of shooting a young boy and jailed at Lancaster County Prison for several days in 2005.

In that case, a guard opened Eichelman's cell door, allowing other inmates to beat him. Eichelman soon was freed as an innocent man.

He sued and the county settled by paying Eichelman $500,000. The guard was fired.

Several other suits charging that correctional officers have abused inmates have been filed against the prison.

Villafane, 28, had been charged with raping a person less than 13 years old seven years ago, when the victim was "between 6 and 7," according to court records.

In  reference to that, Guarini said at Thursday's meeting that "inmates in that housing area were harassing (Villafane) about his charges."

Multiple sources have said that some inmates on C-2 block urged Villafane to kill himself, while others cried "Code Blue" to alert guards.

At the end of the contentious session, Tom Zeager, president of Justice & Mercy, a prison watchdog group, said he hopes the board eventually will release the facts of the case, rather than citing pending litigation as a reason to withhold information.

"It keeps generating public questions," he said.

County Commissioner and Prison Board member Craig Lehman said "there should be a way to inform the public about issues like this" without undermining the county's legal concerns.

Lancaster City Police are still investigating the incident.

Meanwhile, a group of medical and mental health experts is looking into ways to prevent suicides in the prison.

James Laughman, director of the county's Office of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Early Intervention and chairman of the study group, told the board Thursday, "The purpose of this is for review. It is not an investigation."

In another matter, prison researcher Don Raiger reported that the prison is considering using radio-frequency identification to complement prison surveillance cameras.

RFID tags or bracelets would pinpoint the location of inmates and guards at all times, he said. They could be programmed to set off alarms if people moved into unauthorized sections of the prison.


Staff writer Jack Brubaker can be reached at jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781.