By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – A $1.5 million claim has been filed against Lewis County, by a former inmate who said he was left with no option other than entering into a plea agreement after his attorney-client-protected documents were removed from his cell before trial and handed over to a prosecutor.
Forrest E. Amos says the actions rendered his fair trial rights meaningless, violating his rights under the federal and state constitutions.
[1]Forrest E. Amos
Amos is serving a 12-year sentence in connection with trafficking in prescription pain pills.
Law enforcement estimated that in 2011 when Amos was aggressively dealing Oxycodone, he was the main supplier of the synthetic opiate within Lewis County, possessing and dealing thousands of pills a month.
Amos was held in the Lewis County Jail from December 2013 until the following August.
He writes in his claim that at the request of his lawyer, he prepared case notes, narratives, witness synopsis and questions, along with trial strategies and other materials intended to assist in preparing his defense.
He states that on June 18, 2014, two corrections officers stood by as a pair of Centralia police officers with a search warrant unlawfully went through all of his documents and seized them.
Amos contends that rather than place the materials into an evidence locker at the police department, the officers gave them to Lewis County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Will Halstead.
His lawyer, Don Blair, attempted to view the documents so he could continue to prepare to interview witnesses prior to trial but was denied access by both the prosecutor’s office and the police department, according to Amos.
Amos filed a similar claim against the city of Centralia on Nov. 23. The city has turned the claim over to its insurer, according to its personnel director Candice Rydalch.
Lewis County Risk and Safety Administrator Paulette Young indicated today the county has taken no action on it yet.
She received Amos’s claim last week, mailed from Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen.
Amos, formerly of Napavine and Chehalis, was 30 years old in December 2013 when he was brought before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court, charged with organized crime and a multitude of other offenses. Centralia police contended Amos’s illegal activities dated back to 2011 and continued while he was in prison.
New charges of witness intimidation filed June 18, 2014 – which were subsequently dismissed – included allegations that while in the Lewis County Jail, Amos used his”legal mail” to continue his criminal intentions without detection.
Amos’s claim against the county states that Centralia Officer Adam Haggerty secured the search warrant for his jail cell from Judge R.W. Buzzard, but it omitted a fact which would have caused Buzzard not to grant the warrant.
Amos writes that Haggerty had earlier persuaded jail officials to copy all of his incoming and outgoing mail, and forward them to the Centralia Police Department.
In August 2014, he entered into a plea deal involving far fewer charges that gave him a dozen years behind bars and included a promise not to appeal his convictions or sentence in any way.
Amos writes also that he plans to file a lawsuit for invasion of privacy and abuse of process. He is representing himself.
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For background, read “Local oxycodone dealer goes back to prison” from Thursday Aug. 21, 2014, here [2]