Activist accused of try at prison smuggling

LITTLE ROCK — Authorities accused Betsey Wright, at one time a chief of staff to former-Gov. Bill Clinton and now a prisoner-rights advocate, of trying to smuggle contraband into Arkansas' death row - including 48 tattoo needles hidden inside a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.

Wright faces 51 felony countsof furnishing prohibited articles into a correctional facility, authorities said Wednesday.

They said Wright, 66, tried to smuggle box cutters, tweezers and a knife into the Varner Unit in Lincoln County on May22 in addition to the needles, which were in a Doritos bag she claimed came from a prison vending machine, according to a July 6 Arkansas State Police investigative report.

"The only problem with that was the particular kind of Doritos she had wasn't for sale in the machine," said Dina Tyler, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Tyler said the pocketknife and box cutters were on Wright's key ring, and the knife was hidden in some of her other possessions.

Reached on her cell phone, Wright, who lives in Rogers, referred all questions to her attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig of Little Rock.

"I haven't seen it [the charges] but I want to refer you to my lawyer ..." Wright said.

Rosenzweig said Wright would plead innocent.

He said she's being singled out by authorities because she's a longtime prisoner-rights advocate who has been an "irritant to the [Correction] Department on any number of occasions."

"We're disappointed that prosecutors chose to file charges," Rosenzweig said. "We feel thisis a misinterpretation of some ambiguous circumstance. We're disappointed they didn't give her the benefit of the doubt."

Rosenzweig declined to discuss the details of the charges.

Wright served as Clinton's chief of staff while he was governor and as his campaign manager in 1982, 1984 and 1986. She was the chairman and executive director of the state Democratic Party from 1990-91. By 1992 she was deputy campaign manager for Clinton's run for the presidency, and she worked briefly as a lobbyist in Washington before returning to Arkansas.

Back in Arkansas, Wright has lobbied for prisoners' rights and against capital punishmentfor years. Last year, she was an outspoken critic of Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet, claiming he was inconsistent in pursuing the death penalty.

In 2007, she said she had monitored inmate menus and found them to be unhealthy and that prison food increased chances of sickness among inmates.

"No attempt is made to prepare the food in an appetizing way. Slop does not encourage healthy eating," Wright told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in February2007. "I wish that Martha Stewart could have served her time in Arkansas prisons. She would have fixed this."

This is not the first time Wright has been caught trying to sneak contraband into an Arkansas prison, Tyler said.

In 2005, Wright had her visitation rights suspended for six months for trying to smuggle money into a prison, although no criminal charges were filed in that case, Tyler said.

In this case, an X-ray machine scan on May 22 showed a red-andsilver pocketknife hidden in her belongings.

Further searching led prison guards to the Doritos bag, which had been opened and resealed, the tweezers and a blue box cutter with a razor, according to the police report.

Wright told authorities she found the bag of Doritos lying atthe bottom of the vending machine, as if somebody else paid for the chips but never collected them, the report said.

After guards opened the chip bag and confronted Wright about what was inside, she said: "Oh my goodness ... I guess you don't get nothing free," according to the police report.

Tyler said the Correction Department considers the box cutter and pocketknife weapons that inmates could use to harm one another.

She said the tweezers and needles could also be used as weapons.

Tyler said if the needles were intended to make tattoos, then that becomes a health hazard.

"One of the things we have to fight is inmates giving each other tattoos because that's one of the fastest ways to spread hepatitis C," Tyler said.