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July 25, 2005

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Former Mrs. Minnesota Dee Henderson, doing three years and change for Social Security fraud, wants a transfer to Minnesota to serve the remainder of her time:

Henderson, 45, and her supporters are circulating petitions calling for her transfer, which more than 500 people have signed. They have created a website promoting her cause with the battle cry "Free Dee." And they gained an ally in Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., who is urging prison officials to grant her request to serve the rest of her sentence in Minnesota.
dee henderson

That request was recently turned down. Henderson is appealing, but her chances of victory do not appear good.

The rationale: Henderson wants to be close to her daughter. She's got Senator Coleman on board:
"Those who know Amanda," Coleman wrote, "fear that her infrequent contact with her mother will slow or even reverse her progress toward productive adulthood."
The US attorney isn't impressed:
U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger, whose office prosecuted Henderson, said that she is asking to be treated differently from other prisoners. "She is where she should be," he said...It is more often than not the case that all of those women have families, including children who are to some degree dependent upon them," Heffelfinger said. "I guess the difference in this case is that, unlike most of the female defendants sentenced in Minnesota, Ms. Henderson has access to a United States senator's office that most do not."
Not just women.

Many men have families that are torn apart when they go to prison. Shall we get some clemency for them, too?

Or is it only mothers that count with these people?

Note to Senator Coleman: while putting prisoners close to their families would help with a lot of social ills, this is hardly the place or person to start with.

Posted by Mitch at July 25, 2005 08:29 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Couldn't agree more, Mitch, but it's Coleman, not much more could be expected. He's made a career out of pandering to the rich and beautiful.

PB

Posted by: PB at July 25, 2005 09:14 AM

Well, let's be fair; he built a career "pandering" to his constituents. Some are rich, some are attractive, some not so much.

I mean, he talked with ME for half an hour once.

Posted by: mitch at July 25, 2005 09:22 AM

Talking with folks is not really the same as interceding, and pandering to his "constituents," if we're being fair that would be hardly the term I'd use. He built Lawson a building as well as the Wild and St. Paul is now in massive debt that they'll likely never repay. The promised revitalization, sure, if you think 1400 employees and a few beer vendors constitutes revitalization. It hasn't happened, he pandered to contractors, to the Wild ownership, and the Lawson brothers. The tax receipts from last year (sans Wild) were better than the previous year, in large part due to a WalMart built in the Midway, which shows to go you that sports franchises are a boondoggle. He's step and fetch-it, plain and simple, and he'd sell his mom if it got him a second term.

Want some proof, go call Norm and ask him for clemency for your ugly brother (theorhetical here), see what kind of help you get.

PB

Posted by: PB at July 25, 2005 09:45 AM

According to the latest stats I could find. The Pekin, Illinois facility has 80 Minnesotan women with over 200 children left back home. There is a nonprofit out of St Paul that tries to help these women by setting up bus trips for their kids and by getting donated cell phones for them. Most of these women are first time offenders who are in on mandatory minimum sentencing.

Posted by: cleversponge at July 25, 2005 05:31 PM

When I worked for Congressman Ben Gilman (a Republican from upstate New York) back in the late 1970s, I successfully persuaded the federal prison agency to transfer a constitutent from a federal prison in West Virginia to another federal prison in Connecticut. The constituent and his family had sought the transfer so that he could be closer to his family in New York. This is the kind of work that Members of Congress and Senators (well, at least their staffers) do. This is routine. 99 times out of 100, the public doesn't hear about this kind of work. Here, because of the high-profile nature of the former Mrs. Minnesota, it makes the papers.

Larry

Posted by: Larry at July 26, 2005 07:48 AM

Larry’s probably right about this. Constituent services are the bread and butter of politics even though they rarely make the news. Add that to the conventional wisdom that every phone call/email/letter from a constituent represents the views of something like five other people and a petition with 500 signatures (2500 votes) is probably going to make a Senator (or rather his staffers) take some notice.


Posted by: Thorley Winston at July 26, 2005 09:37 AM

What Senator Coleman did is nothing new. A provision exists within the BOP for transfer of prisoners and it is done all the time. What makes this surprising to some is that this got any press at all.

I for one was surprised when this rather routine request got media play. Our daughter would benefit from an exchange of prisons since she has CP, and requires Dee help in maintaining her development. If the other 80 Minnesota women in Pekin wanted a transfer the system would accommodate them too, IF they asked.

As for the non profit group helping families visit Minnesota Women in Pekin, our family was turned down for the program since we had too many resources. So on one hand we are penalized because we are “influential” and the other turned away because of the same logic. Our influence consisted of a few letters to his office requesting help. This help was offered not only because we asked, not for any other reason.

Wherever you stand on this remember, Senator Coleman is there for you too. IF you need help, his staff is there to do what they can. Some of you may find that reassuring. I assume others of you think you will never need help. Just maybe you should not be so quick to blame Senator Coleman for trying to do what we put in office to do... help the residents of Minnesota, rich or poor, deal with and get representation in Washington D.C. and beyond.

Ken Henderson

Posted by: Ken Henderson at August 16, 2005 11:28 PM

From what I see, which is nonpolitical at best, this individual, Dee, did not get the "mandatory minimum" sentence. I was at the sentencing hearing. Three years and change down plays the sentence. Almost four years or "the maximum possible" is more like it. In a child's eyes, four years is a lifetime, with or without a disability. Remember,as an adult, it is half of our lifetime.

This begs a few questions which I do not have answers to:
Why are there 80 women placed in Illinois and not Minnesota in the first place?

If men are being placed out of state, AND want to stay close to their families, are they asking for help?

Why not write a senator and ask for help, isn't that why we elected them? (I have written in the past and received a response.)

Posted by: Vicki at August 19, 2005 10:58 AM
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