VANCOUVER — B.C.’s notorious drug-smuggling skipper has filed suit against the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for not doing enough to protect him from the deadly coronavirus.
John Philip Stirling, 66, says he has been put at risk inside his Oregon prison because prisoners have been moved into the facility without being isolated from longer-term convicts.
Stirling is awaiting sentencing after being caught last year on a sailboat off the coast of Oregon with 28, seven-gallon (26-litre) jugs containing liquid methamphetamine. His sentencing hearing had been scheduled for April but was delayed due to court closures related to the pandemic. It is now set for May 21.
Stirling filed suit against the BOP last month, alleging that the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution, southwest of Portland, “kept putting 10 people that are from outside this prison in my unit under what the captain says is quarantine.”
“Sheridan prison staff are endangering my life with new entries,” Stirling said in his handwritten complaint. “I am 66 years old with diabetes. I should be released as death either mentally or by Corona-19 is inevitable under the present situation.”
He also complained about being on lockdown with little access to showers, phones, email or “quality food,” and that there is no bleach for cleaning.
“We are exposed to guards with no masks, gloves, footwear that is unclean after we have been locked down,” he said. “My wife in Canada is sick and the times I get out do not allow me to call. I have had four hours out in the last 19 days.”
Stirling is asking the U.S. District Court in Portland to issue an injunction, preventing the BPO and Sheridan staff from bringing new people into his unit. And he wants an order to end the lockdown, which he says is impacting the mental health of inmates.
On May 1, Magistrate Judge Stacie Beckerman appointed a public defender to act on Stirling’s behalf in his suit.
The B.C. man also filed a second, handwritten lawsuit against the Government of China, blaming it for the virus, and seeking US$30-million in damages.
“In the last five days, three people here within view of my cell have tried to kill themselves,” Stirling said. “I have seen enough blood now to paint a house due to the lockdown of this jail for COVID-19. I do not know how much longer I can withstand the pressure, stress, depression, blood and prejudice I am forced to suffer.”
He said inmates are “pounding doors, yelling to get out of their cells, but we are never released.”
He claimed the delay in his case has cost him “conservatively $30 million,” without providing details on how he is losing cash.
In January, Stirling pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute meth, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison in the U.S. But Stirling’s plea deal recommended he be sentenced to 87 months.
Stirling’s drug-trade history dates to 1990, when he pleaded guilty to cocaine-conspiracy charges and was sentenced to five years.
In 2001, he was arrested on his boat, the Western Wind, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with 2.5 tonnes of cocaine on-board but was never charged.
In 2006, he was arrested again off Vancouver Island after police found $6.5-million worth of marijuana on-board a fishing vessel registered to him. The charges laid against him were later dropped.
In 2011, the Americans arrested him off the coast of Colombia with 381 kilograms of cocaine on-board. He was convicted and sentenced to seven years.
He had been out of jail for less than a year when he was arrested again in 2019.
