Fla. May Ban Esquire for Inmates

By DAVID ROYSE
01:14 AM ET 08/27/99

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The latest issue of Esquire magazine may be banned from state prisons because of a story about a California guard ``who did some very bad things in the deadliest prison in America.'' Prison officials said the article is dangerously inflammatory.  It comes amid tension in Florida prisons over the recent death of an inmate and an investigation into whether guards killed him.  The magazine describes ``how a nice guy, Roscoe Pondexter, became a brutal guard'' in California's Corcoran State Prison.  Officials at the North Florida Reception Center prison in Lake Butler intercepted an inmate's September copy of the magazine after reading ``The Making of Bonecrusher'' by Richard Stratton.

The story contains ``Bonecrusher'' Pondexter's account of how he and other Corcoran guards abused inmates, including forcing them to fight ``like gladiators.''

``Bonecrusher was part of this gang of guards that was said to wager on these fights, part of this gang that shot and killed seven of the gladiators when the fights didn't go as planned, or shot and killed them just for sport,'' the story says.

Florida prison officials passed on the magazine to the system's literature review committee, which will decide Friday if the story should be banned system-wide.

David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, said he is ``struck that they would find our piece so powerful it could cause problems.''

At Corcoran State Prison, eight officers were indicted for allegedly staging gladiator-style fights between inmates. An independent panel found last fall that deadly force was not justified in 24 of 31 inmate shootings at Corcoran from 1989 to 1995; guards shot some inmates engaged in fistfights, killing seven of them. Five others were charged with sexually assaulting an inmate.

Pondexter was never charged and has been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony against other guards. He was fired for beating up a prisoner.

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