Special Treatment? Pennsylvania's Head Prison Honcho Is A Cosby Fan!
Oct. 12 2018, Published 7:35 p.m. ET
John Wetzel, who sits as the current Pennsylvania Secretary of Corrections has been a fond fan of Bill Cosby throughout the years – according to his own Twitter account, RadarOnline.com has exclusively uncovered.
“Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it,” John Wetzel first tweeted in 2012, noting it was a Bill Cosby quote.
Wetzel, who oversees 24 state prisons consisting of approximately 47,000 inmates tweeted on the eve of Bill Cosby’s retrial, again, quoting something written by the caged comic. “As they said on the Cosby kids cartoon – ‘You like school in the summertime.’ ‘NO CLASS.’”
“When you lead the very prison system, where you presumably want the public to believe there is no favoritism – it can’t be anything less than ill advised to tweet about one of your own prisoners,” high-profile Philly lawyer Charles Peruto, Jr., who has defended deranged murderers such as Gary Heidnik and mafioso-types told RadarOnline.com.
RadarOnline.com readers know one man was found dead in his cell at SCI Phoenix and several others claimed “hate crimes” occurred at the prison since opening its doors mid-summer.
“My son has been treated with nothing but disrespect,” a father of an inmate serving time at SCI Phoenix for drug related charges told RadarOnline.com. “He’s been beaten, spit on, attacked – I mean the list is never ending. They don’t take reports seriously unless you allege sexual assault. They don’t help the poor, powerless individuals who don’t have a voice representing them like Mr. Cosby.”
The father noted that since Cosby’s arrival at SCI Phoenix, times have gotten a tad better for his son.
“He told me that the prison is afraid that the world’s watching them and the slightest incident could result in some international outrage,” the father continued. “They give Bill Cosby this unimaginable treatment – stuff you can’t get at club fed – let alone a state maximum security prison! It’s easy to say he’s treated better than people who live in homeless shelters.”
Within minutes of Bill Cosby’s arrival at State Correctional Institution Phoenix, Secretary Wetzel issued a statement: “We are taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure Mr. Cosby’s safety and general welfare in our institution,” Wetzel continued. “The long term goal is for him to be placed in the general population to receive the programming required during his incarceration.”
“There are several inmate staff assigned to assist Mr. Cosby for several hours a day,” Amy Worden, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvania Department of Corrections said earlier this month. “This is standard procedure for any elderly or infirm inmate who needs assistance getting around,” also noting that he’s in “good spirits.”
A daughter of an elderly inmate says that’s “far from standard procedure,” noting that her grandfather was abused, tripped by other inmates and has never had “assistance getting around.”
“My father lives in hell,” a daughter of a second inmate revealed to RadarOnline.com, citing the poor conditions at SCI Phoenix. “He’s 70-years-old. When I heard on the news that they will be taking ‘precautions’ for Bill Cosby’s ‘safety and general welfare’ I thought to myself: ‘What about my father who was beaten? Where’s his ‘personal guide’ and ‘assistant?’ What about the transgender individual who was brutally raped by inmates and assaulted by a prison guard? What about us, the not so fortunate families who don’t have the power Bill Cosby has? What about us?’”
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A transgender woman lodged a federal lawsuit against Wetzel in 2016, alleging that she had been incarcerated in seven different prisons over a four year period where she says she was “subjected to repeated sexual harassment and abuse, including being raped by another prisoner and forced by a guard to perform oral sex.”
Both families with children at SCI Phoenix spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect their loved ones from any potential retaliation.
RadarOnline.com broke the news, despite the caged comic’s preferential treatment, his legal team is fighting day and night to get him out and void his convictions.
“Secretary Wetzel has an active personal twitter account and his tweets do not constitute an endorsement.” Amy Worden, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections told RadarOnline.com.
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