Death of inmate at Columbia Correctional is under investigation

The death of a 68-year-old inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution is under investigation by the Columbia County Sheriff's Office, a sheriff's official said Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, a state Department of Corrections spokeswoman confirmed the prison has been locked down since Nov. 8 after three assaults by inmates on staff members.  

The death of Larry Bracey Jr. appears to be from natural causes, but toxicology tests from an autopsy are pending, sheriff's Capt. Jason Kocovsky said.

According to Kocovsky, shortly before noon Dec. 3, paramedics were called to a restrictive housing unit at the maximum-security men's prison in Portage, where Bracey was pronounced dead in his cell.

Meanwhile, visits for inmates at Columbia were suspended until further notice on Nov. 8, according to the prison's website, but on Tuesday DOC spokeswoman Clare Hendricks said normal visitation has resumed.

In a statement, Hendricks said during the lockdown inmates were "mostly confined to their cells" and provided bagged meals.

Phone privileges, visitations and canteen distributions had also been suspended.

They were not allowed to shower until Nov. 16, when the distribution of clean clothing resumed, and hot meals were once again being provided, Hendricks said.

A prisoners' rights group, the Forum for Understanding Prisons, claims that the assaults at the prison were instigated by harassment, verbal abuse and racial slurs by prison staff.

"Nobody is just randomly attacking staff," an inmate at the prison is quoted as saying in a news release from the organization.

Another group, the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, claimed that since the lockdown was imposed, inmates were denied access to showers until this month and have not been paid for their labor per state law.

In her statement, Hendricks said inmates received "specific instructions…regarding how to add funding to their accounts (as needed) to have uninterrupted service."

In October, two former guards at the prison were sentenced to probation for beating an inmate from Milwaukee and lying about the incident in a report.

Russell Goldsmith, 64, of Westfield pleaded no contest to abuse of a penal facility resident and misconduct in public office, both felonies. He was sentenced to 18 months on probation for each count.

Michael Thompson, 47, of Reedsburg pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and resisting or obstructing an officer and sentenced to a year on probation.

Thompson had initially been charged with felony misconduct in public office.

Long prison history

Bracey was last convicted in 1991 for first-degree sexual assault of a child, second-degree reckless injury and battery by a prisoner, according to state court records.

He does not appear on the DOC's inmate locator, but newspaper stories detail a prison history going back to the early 1970s for offenses that include robbery, assault on a police officer and an assault on a prison guard.

In 1976, he was found not guilty in the beating death of another inmate at what was then Central State Hospital in Waupun, commonly described as a "facility for the criminally insane."

When he was 3 years old, Bracey was critically injured and suffered a fractured skull when he was struck by a car on Milwaukee's north side, according to one newspaper account.