Federal Death Row Counselor Removed from Position After Allegedly Trolling Anti-Death Penalty Activist and Mocking Prisoners

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has removed a senior prison offi­cial from his posi­tion as a death-row coun­selor in the wake of charges that he used an anony­mous Twitter account to troll a death-penal­ty activist and to mock fed­er­al death-row prisoners. 

Andrew Sutton, a Special Confinement Unit (SCU) Counselor at the Federal Correctional Complex — Terre Haute, was qui­et­ly reas­signed after he was linked to a Twitter account named fozzythe­bear that, a law­suit alleges, dis­par­aged, defamed, and taunt­ed an anti-death penal­ty lawyer. The law­suit, filed on December 28, 2020 by Ashley Kincaid Eve, a lawyer who assist­ed Christopher Vialva​’s defense team with Vialva’s social media out­reach and clemen­cy peti­tion, accus­es Sutton of anony­mous­ly tweet­ing infor­ma­tion he obtained in his pro­fes­sion­al capac­i­ty to ​“harm [her] rep­u­ta­tion and low­er her stand­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty regard­ing her legal advo­ca­cy” and to inten­tion­al­ly inflict emotional distress.

The law­suit alleges that Sutton used priv­i­leged infor­ma­tion to ​“go out of his way to taunt her.” As Kincaid Eve worked to spread news about Vialva’s case, an anony­mous Twitter account named fozzythe­bear tweet­ed that “[t]his crazy lady is not a part of his legal team. She is just try­ing to be famous.” Screenshots of post­ings from the since-delet­ed Twitter account show anoth­er fozzythe­bear tweet assert­ing that ​“Eve isn’t on Vialva’s legal team. She’s a con-artist look­ing for 15 min­utes of fame from the ​‘first black man’ exe­cut­ed in 15 years. She’s using Vialva for her own gain.” 

Screenshots of the fozzythe­bear tweets also show a post­ing derid­ing not­ed death-penal­ty oppo­nent Sister Helen Prejean as “#fak­e­nun.”

As SCU Counselor, Sutton was respon­si­ble for set­ting up legal calls, legal vis­its, and oth­er forms of con­tact for the pris­on­ers on fed­er­al death row. Kincaid Eve was in reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Sutton as she attempt­ed to set up phone calls and in-per­son vis­its with Vialva. She alleges that Sutton divulged priv­i­leged infor­ma­tion about her that he learned through his offi­cial posi­tion on the anony­mous Twitter account. 

Just nine days before Vialva’s exe­cu­tion — on the same day Sutton in his offi­cial capac­i­ty denied Kincaid Eve a legal vis­it with Vialva — fozzythe­bear anony­mous­ly tweet­ed that Vialva ​“is get­ting exact­ly what he deserves” in response to a tweet about Kincaid Eve’s advo­ca­cy in the case. The law­suit alleges that this tweet ​“caused [Kincaid Eve] extreme men­tal dis­tress … because not only had fozzythe­bear defamed her, she was aware that indi­vid­u­als at the Bureau of Prisons had been mon­i­tor­ing her social media.” 

After the exe­cu­tion, anoth­er fozzythe­bear tweet exult­ed over Vialva’s appar­ent anx­i­ety in antic­i­pa­tion of being put to death. ​“Vialva gave off the feel­ing of ner­vous­ness and fear,” fozzythe­bear quot­ed a media wit­ness as say­ing, and con­clud­ed “#haha­ha­ha.”

Kincaid Eve sup­port­ed her alle­ga­tion that fozzythe­bear had divulged con­fi­den­tial BOP infor­ma­tion based upon his response to a tweet that three fed­er­al exe­cu­tions remained pend­ing in 2020. ​“Don’t count your chick­en [sic] before they hatch,” fozzythe­bear tweet­ed; ​“hope­ful­ly November and December will be a [sic] very busy month!” Later, more exe­cu­tions were sched­uled over the course of 2020.

“It was clear this Twitter account exist­ed sole­ly for the pur­pose of express­ing plea­sure and sup­port of exe­cu­tions,” Kincaid Eve wrote in the lawsuit.

On September 26, 2020, Kincaid Eve emailed Sutton, writ­ing, ​“By the way — and maybe it’s even you — but some BOP (Bureau of Prisons) offi­cial who got pro­mot­ed after ten years of work­ing on death row has been defam­ing me and got a lit­tle too Twitter hap­py over the last few months about the sadis­tic plea­sure being tak­en from these killings,” accord­ing to the law­suit. Sutton was sub­se­quent­ly removed from his posi­tion as SCU Counselor in September or October, accord­ing to the lawsuit.