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'Foxes guarding a hen house': Beaver Falls woman gets released then sent back to prison

Beaver County Times - 7/12/2021

Jul. 9—All Wanda Solomon wanted for her 60th birthday was a fresh start.

She'd missed so many milestones and major events during more than a dozen years in federal prison: her children's graduations, her great-grandchildren's births. Her daughter had opened her own hair salon; her mother had died.

But starting Nov. 26, 2019 — the first day she was eligible for early release under the new First Step Act — Solomon vowed to make new memories. She'd get a new job, maybe log some volunteer work. She'd make up for lost time with her kids and grandkids. She'd cook her signature home fries and play bingo, two of her favorites.

And for 30 days, that's exactly what Wanda Solomon did.

Solomon, still in her pajamas and slippers, hurried downstairs on Dec. 26 to meet the U.S. marshal at the door of her halfway house.

"You didn't do anything wrong," the marshal assured her. "But I have to take you back to Alderson Federal Prison Camp."

The Beaver Falls woman spent one month free. The next morning, she woke up once again in a prison bed.

When Solomon turned 60 in November 2019, she qualified for the Early Release Pilot Program under the First Step Act, Trump-era legislation that seeks to reduce the federal prison population while also ensuring public safety.

The First Step Act, enacted Dec. 21, 2018, features correctional and sentencing reform and modifies an early release pilot program to allow elderly and terminally ill prisoners into home confinement or a residential reentry center to serve the remainder of their sentence.

Inmates eligible for this pilot program, also known as the elder offender program, must be at least 60 years old; are not serving a life sentence or have been convicted of a crime of violence, sex offense, terrorism or espionage. Inmates must have already served two-thirds of their prison sentence, been determined by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to not have a "history of violence," not have escaped or attempted to escape, been determined by the BOP to have a "substantial net reduction of costs to the federal government" as a result of home confinement; and have been determined by the BOP to not be a substantial risk to the public.

First Step Act numbers

Between Dec. 21, 2018, and Sept. 30, 2020, 7,251 inmates were released from federal prison as a result of the First Step Act, according to the Attorney General's First Step Act annual report. Of those inmates, 88.7% did not recidivate.

It wasn't until a month after the BOP released Solomon into a residential reentry center that they determined she wasn't actually eligible for the pilot program. The prison deemed Solomon ineligible because of a then 22-year-old disorderly conduct charge from 1997 and an infraction from a 2007 fight she was involved in after she arrived at the prison.

According to a letter given to Solomon by M.E. Reherman, the warden at Alderson Federal Prison Camp, those two instances are the sole reason for her return to prison.

When Solomon was released from prison two days before Thanksgiving, she wanted to keep her freedom a surprise.

Even after being incarcerated for 13 years, Solomon couldn't pass up an opportunity to joke around with her family, especially on her favorite holiday.

"I said, 'Don't tell anyone I'm coming home,'" Solomon said in a phone interview with The Times from the prison.

She hid in the bathroom on Thanksgiving day, and Solomon's daughter Imani asked family members to go into the bathroom to get something for her. Slowly, each family member found Wanda Solomon standing in the bathroom smiling.

"I hid in the bathroom on Thanksgiving and as my son and grandkids came in, I would tap them on the back, and they couldn't believe it," Solomon said.

Seeing her sons Akiel and Ayende was especially emotional.

"(Akiel) touched my face, touched my arms and body and backed up, and then touched my hand again and said, 'Are you really real? Are you really here?'" Solomon said, pausing to choke back tears. "And I said, 'Yes, I am here.'"

Wanda didn't realize when she hugged her youngest son Ayende that it would be for the last time. Ayende Solomon died unexpectedly in October 2020 — he hadn't seen his mom since he was a young teenager.

"When he got to hug her for the first time, emotions were high," said Imani Solomon, 35, of Beaver Falls. "The silence was thick. But it was a happy moment. I remember him saying, 'That's all I've been waiting for.'"

For Ayana Akins, 27, of Beaver Falls, seeing her grandma again felt like everything was coming back into place.

"My grandma and me, we have a very close relationship," Akins said. "I was able to call her every day just to talk to her about the simplest things. I would even call her on my lunch breaks."

When Solomon would get passes from her residential re-entry center to visit her family, often Akins would pick her up. Those car drives were special, Akins said, because it was extra time with her grandma.

Solomon was able to spend time with Akins' then 3-year-old daughter, Nova, too.

"She's missed so much of her life, but I felt like they hit it off right away," Akins said. "My daughter has a great personality and my grandma always says it so similar to mine. They just clicked."

Nova and Solomon got really close in those 30 days together. They watched shows together — PJ Masks on repeat. While they were together, Akins said little Nova did something she wasn't supposed to.

"Thinking she was in trouble, she ran to my grandma and started kissing her hand," Akins laughed. "My grandma brings that up all the time."

It was Nova and Solomon's first moment together where it felt like there hadn't been lost time. It felt like all was well again. Until Solomon was taken back to prison mere weeks later.

Nova now asks where Solomon went.

"It's traumatizing for a child. She doesn't understand fully," Adkins said. "It's like somebody put a Band-Aid over your wound and then ripped it off again."

Wanda Solomon was returned to prison after the Bureau of Prisons said she had a history of violence.

She was originally sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in 2007 for drug conspiracy charges. But it wasn't her conviction that got her canned from the elderly offender program, it was two unrelated incidents — a 1997 disorderly conduct charge and a 2007 prison fight.

Extending the title of "history of violence" to a person with two minor offenses could feel egregious to some. But criminal justice advocates believe its evidence of a larger, more systemic issue.

Sam Saylor, an assistant federal public defender in the western district of Pennsylvania, said the Bureau of Prisons isn't in the business of releasing people.

"Generally the justice department and Bureau of Prisons very rarely release anyone," he said. "To get to that point and then bring someone back in is very rare. They're not in the business of releasing people; they are in the business of keeping people in."

Saylor, who has worked as Solomon's attorney in the past, said whether an inmate is approved for the elderly offender program is entirely up to the Department of Justice's discretion. Which he believes is problematic.

"You're trusting the foxes to guard the hens," Saylor said. "If you're making foxes in charge of the hen house, then they're never going to get out."

Program participants breakdown

According to the Bureau of Prisons website, 1,091 inmates have been approved for the elderly offender program, and 245 are currently in home confinement. The BOP did not respond before The Times' deadline with the number of inmates who applied for the program.

One technique the justice department uses for gatekeeping is deliberately tightening restrictions on who can qualify for early release programs, said Kara Gotsch, deputy director of the Sentencing Project.

"This is exactly the type of ridiculousness we are encountering," Gotsch said of Solomon's case. "It's ridiculous that these kinds of dated considerations are preventing people from the benefits of utilizing home confinement."

Brett Tolman, the former U.S. Attorney for Utah, previous legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., and the current executive director of Right on Crime, said Solomon's case illustrates how the federal criminal justice system is trying to keep people imprisoned.

"It just shows they are looking for any reason to pull them back," Tolman said.

Tolman helped draft and pass state and federal-level criminal justice legislation including the First Step Act, the Corrections Act and the Fair Sentencing Act. He also was the prosecutor for the kidnapper in the Elizabeth Smart case. He's been a criminal justice reform advocate for 12 years.

"I've been a criminal justice reform advocate because I saw firsthand so many broken aspects of the criminal justice system that need to be fixed," Tolman said. "The problem you have is the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice are in the business of punishing, and that is their mind frame and how they see themselves."

An elderly woman from Baltimore was most recently granted home confinement after serving 16 years of her 24-year sentence. She was sent back to prison for not answering phone calls from officials while she was attending a computer class.

Like Wanda Solomon, Gwen Levi, a 76-year-old woman in remission from lung cancer, was serving a sentence for drug conspiracy charges.

Levi is among the more than 24,000 federal prisoners who were allowed to serve their sentence through home confinement during COVID-19. But a Justice Department memo issued in the final days of the Trump administration said inmates whose sentences will extend beyond the pandemic must be brought back to prison. That included Levi, who has four years left to serve, and about 4,000 other prisoners, some of whom have secured jobs and gone back to school.

But in a four-page ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Deborah C. Chasanow said "it would do little" to force Levi to serve the entirety of her sentence, according to USA Today reporting.

"During her incarceration, she took many courses, worked, and completed drug education," Chasanow wrote, noting Levi's age, medical conditions and lack of major disciplinary problems.

Solomon, too, took educational and personal growth courses while imprisoned, and she worked. Solomon took over 60 classes while incarcerated, ranging from biology and anatomy, women and spirituality, history and literature, business and economics, to knitting, sculpting, creative writing and fitness.

"I don't think there's another class my mom can take," Imani Solomon said.

Despite several appeals, Wanda Solomon remains in prison for the remainder of her sentence.

Solomon is a single mother of six originally from Brooklyn, N.Y. She moved to Beaver Falls to follow her mother, who came to the area as a preacher.

"Our house was actually connected to the church," Imani Solomon said. "My grandma was so strict. We had to go to church like every Sunday. Bible study, everything you could think of, and she definitely showed us how important God is and how important it is to pray and to be kind to others."

Faith has been pivotal for Imani, as she deals with the loss of her brother and grapples with her mother sitting in a prison cell yet again.

"I carry this load that's unbearable sometimes. But just spending time with God, the burdens have gotten easier. They don't leave — but they do get easier," she said. "I think that's how I was able to even get through my mother leaving, and then my little brother passing away. I thought I was going to lose my mind. But, God."

When Wanda Solomon was released from prison, Imani said the phone was ringing off the hook with folks just wanting to hear Wanda's voice.

"Honestly people wouldn't let us sleep," Imani Solomon joked. "This woman wasn't only the glue to the family, but she was a pillar to the community. For people to hear that she was finally home, it was the best news."

Wanda Solomon had a difficult time believing she wasn't in prison anymore.

While released for that short time, she said she would look out her window for hours, watching cars and people go by.

"No one could understand unless you've been in that situation," Solomon said. "To just get some air, to move around. To be able to go to Rite Aid. It was an amazing feeling."

Her biggest fear was returning to prison, Imani Solomon said.

"When I picked up my mom, she said 'I feel like something's wrong,'" the daughter said. "And I said, nothing's wrong. They let you out because you qualified and you were eligible for this. They're going to get in trouble if they even think about coming to get you."

Her mom replied, "I hope so."

"I think the trauma from just being incarcerated for so long and being caged up like that, it's ridiculous. She was just so worried. She almost didn't believe that she was even allowed to be free," Imani Solomon said.

The morning the U.S. marshal picked up Wanda Solomon, Imani knew something was wrong.

"She didn't call, and my mom calls me every morning," she said. "I'm waiting for the phone call and then I called her cell phone and someone picked up and it wasn't her."

A woman who worked at the residential reentry center said she had Wanda's phone and the U.S. marshal took her back into custody.

"Being taken back into custody, that was her biggest fear," Imani Solomon said. "And I told her that was never going to happen."

It felt impossible. Imani felt like she had lied to her mom, and yet she still didn't understand how she could have been sent back to prison without committing any additional crimes.

"You can't release someone from jail and then take them back with no incidents, no infractions. When people go to jail, it's because they do something wrong, and nothing has been done wrong here," she said. "Just when I thought I was picking up all the pieces, the worst thing happened. I lost my mother all over again. It was like she was kidnapped and there was nothing I could do."

It felt like drowning.

"Could you imagine finally catching your breath after drowning and someone pushing you back under?" Imani said. "That's how it felt when my mother was taken back."

Recidivism rates drop significantly for elderly inmates.

According to a report conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union, recidivism rates drop to slightly more than 2% in people ages 50 to 65. For those above 65, recidivism is nearly zero.

In addition, the ACLU found the cost of incarcerating the elderly is almost double that of younger inmates largely due to increased healthcare expenses. Other studies have shown the cost could be three to five times more.

"Wanda is why the elderly offender program exists," said Saylor. "Congress recognized that there is no need to continue to incarcerate citizens who are getting up there in years. It is well-established as you age your inclination to crime plummets."

Elderly inmates are significantly less likely to return to a life of crime, Gotsch said.

"From my perspective, we need to put more people in home confinement than there are, either through the elderly pilot or through regular home confinement," she said. "Especially when we're talking about older people. They age out of crime, their likelihood of recidivism drops... They are not a threat to public safety."

"Criminal behavior peaks at a young age and drops and drops and drops," she added. "Does it make public safety sense to continue to incarcerate people when they aren't a public safety risk?"

But the justice department isn't always basing these decisions on data, Tolman said.

"It's not within their DNA to make better, more enlightened decisions based on data and based on best practices that many of the states have shown you can take a different approach than long incarceration sentences," he said. "Every aspect of the criminal justice system has sort of escaped thoughtful analysis and accountability as Congress just sort of ramped up all the length of sentences because they want to prove that they were tough on crime. And both parties did it."

As of mid-2020, there are 1.8 million people in the nation's prisons and jails, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. That number dropped by around 14% since 2019, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tolman says the justice department forgets a large facet of its job — rehabilitation.

"It's the pervasive mentality and culture of the department of justice and Bureau of Prisons to focus on punishment and deterrence and to forget they are also responsible for rehabilitation. Because we've never required them to do it. For decades we've allowed the criminal justice system to grow without accountability and without monitoring and checking and ensuring that they are serving all of the purposes that we have tasked them to serve, and that includes rehabilitation," Tolman said.

"The culture does not reward somebody who wants to think outside the box versus somebody who wants to approach crime with an eye on recidivism rather than just simply an eye on punishing those we're angry at."

The justice system is in place to convict and incarcerate those who have committed heinous offenses.

When Tolman prosecuted Brian David Mitchell, kidnapper of Elizabeth Smart, he said he was certain the man's multiple life sentences were appropriate.

"I have no doubt that he is serving the sentence that he should be in order to protect society because I think if he were out, he would do exactly what he did — kidnap young women and rape them."

But for every case like Brian David Mitchell, there are dozens of low-level offenders, Tolman said.

"For every one of those, there's 100 that are just low-level users caught up on the mandatory minimums or they're white-collar defendants who get sentenced on not what they steal but what they intended to steal," he said. "Every aspect of it is just ballooned and that's why we have such large incarceration in our country."

Wanda and Imani Solomon believe there was foul play and corruption involved in Wanda's return to prison.

"There's just things that aren't making sense. There are people in the law that are breaking the law, and I'm going to make sure that everyone is held accountable. You can't enforce a law and then break it when you feel like it because you're a little higher up or you know people who know people, if anything, you should be in a cell next to her," Imani Solomon said. "I've asked numerous attorneys. They say, 'Well someone's upset that she's home,' and, 'Whose feathers did she ruffle that she got out a little early?'"

In fact, she was told by an employee at Alderson Prison that someone called the facility asking why Wanda had been released from prison.

"The gentlemen wouldn't give me his name. But he said, 'Someone did call up to the facility and ask, "Why has she been released? When did she get released?" And we said, "Because she qualifies." And the person said, 'No,'" Imani said.

"I think that's when they came back and took her into custody," she said. "Whoever has that type of power, I'm not sure, but they will be held accountable one day."

Wanda Solomon's release wasn't an accident, Imani said. It was planned for months prior to Nov. 26, 2019.

"I knew months prior to her coming home that she was going to get released on Nov. 26. I had gotten a call from the probation office that she was getting released. They came and checked my house twice for home confinement visits. I mean I had everything in order for months," she said. "If there was an error, why didn't you catch it? It doesn't make sense."

Since she's returned to prison, Wanda Solomon has been prescribed medication for her anxiety and depression.

"I had an episode," Solomon said. "I was embarrassed to come back here. It was overwhelming. I was actually home for 30 days. I didn't violate anything. I did everything right, everything perfect."

Imani Solomon said she will continue to fight for her mom's freedom.

"I can't keep being quiet," she said. "I can't be worried that I'm just a Black girl trying to get my Black mom out of jail and that no one cares. Because someone does care, and we're going to just keep pushing through so that we can get answers. And until we get answers we're just gonna keep fighting."

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