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| Inmates charged in standoff |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/13/2004 |
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One of two inmates who held a pair of prison officers hostage in a watchtower during a 15-day standoff was charged Thursday with sexually abusing the female officer and a kitchen worker. Steven Coy was also charged with kidnapping and assault, as was his accomplice, Ricky Wassenaar. In addition, Wassenaar was charged with attempted murder for allegedly firing a rifle at the beginning of the standoff. The ordeal was one of the longest hostage standoffs at a U.S. prison in decades. The three sexual abuse charges against Coy involve the female officer who was held hostage in the tower for 15 days and a prison worker who was in a prison kitchen where the inmates first overpowered an officer before entering the tower. Wassenaar and Coy took the female officer and a male officer hostage at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis in Buckeye, west of Phoenix, on Jan. 18. The male officer was released Jan. 24. The female officer was released Feb. 1 when the inmates surrendered. Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said the two inmates will remain in Arizona for prosecution despite the state's promise to put them in prisons in other states. Arizona officials agreed to transfer the prisoners out of state as part of the surrender agreement. Gov. Janet Napolitano has said each man would be taken outside the state, returned for trial and then transported back to other states involved. But Romley's office obtained a court order to prevent them from being transferred while their cases are tried in Maricopa County Superior Court. The inmates, currently in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, will be transferred to the Maricopa County Jail while they await trial, Romley said. He said he was anxious to file charges to keep the inmates in Arizona, in part to ease prosecution but also because he disagreed with the deal made by Department of Corrections officials. |
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