Ebersole was imprisoned for providing government with unqualified dogs

By Alex Bridges -- Daily Staff Writer

WINCHESTER — A man in federal prison for providing unqualified bomb-sniffing dogs to the U.S. government claims regional jail officials violated his civil rights this spring.

Russell J. Ebersole, of Hagerstown, Md., has filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Maryland seeking $6 million from the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center for alleged civil rights violations. Ebersole was incarcerated there from April 30 through June 4.

The suit also names then-Superintendent Fred Hildebrand, then-Assistant Superintendent Bruce Conover, three division commanders, a property room officer and federal Bureau of Prisons case manager Kim Rodrigue. Ebersole also lists as defendants the "head nurse and other unknown nurses" with the jail's medical unit, but does not provide names.

Conover, now the jail's superintendent, said Monday that neither he nor anyone named in the suit had been served the complaint.

According to the suit, Ebersole was incarcerated at the regional jail from March 30 to June 4. The facility operated as a contract residential re-entry center, or halfway house.

Ebersole ran a business training bomb-sniffing dogs in Stephenson and from his home. He is currently in federal prison in Cumberland, Md., serving a sentence that includes 63 months for 25 counts of wire fraud and two counts of presenting false claims to the government for providing unqualified dogs. Ebersole also was sentenced to federal prison for witness tampering and delivering explosives.

While incarcerated at the regional jail, Ebersole states, he tried to gain access to legal materials the property room officer had seized from him on arrival. Officials denied him access to these materials from April 30 and May 13, according to the suit. As a result, Ebersole could not work on his case in the appeals process, and thus the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the action, the suit states.

The plaintiff also claims the jail "failed to provide a law library that had any federal law books, thus denying access to the courts as he was unable to work on any of his six pending federal cases."

Jail officials violated his Eighth Amendment rights, the suit alleges, by "deliberate indifference to the plaintiff's serious medical needs" during his incarceration by failing to provide him with medications or food relative to his diet.

The jail also violated his Fifth Amendment rights, Ebersole claims, when it tried to make him sign forms to enter the work-release program, which he states to be in "contravention to federal statutes." The jail would thus be able to take 25 percent of his gross pay, he states, and pass the cost of medical care from the Bureau of Prisons to him. Ebersole seeks $6 million in damages from the defendants in the suit.

However, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake entered an order Aug. 18 stating that Ebersole had filed his case against the regional jail in the wrong court. The plaintiff must file such a claim in the court serving the Western District of Virginia.

* Contact Alex Bridges at abridges@nvdaily.com