Another Islamic inmate has sued the Greene County Jail under the federal civil rights act, saying he was denied a Quran and a prayer rug and was unable to attend Friday prayer services.
The sheriff in the past has said in response to similar claims that the jail does have Qurans. He declined to comment on the latest lawsuit.
Richard Ray McLendon Jr. sued the jail and the officer he identified as the program coordinator who runs religious matters, in a handwritten lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
McLendon, who is waiting to be sent to the federal prison in Marion, Illinois, on a two-year sentence, said in the lawsuit he wasn’t allowed to bring a Quran into the jail. McLendon, who was sentenced for violating supervised release in a sex offender case, wrote that he subsequently tried to have a Quran sent to him and also was unsuccessful.
“I was told to get someone from the outside to send it from the publisher,” McLendon wrote. “So I did and I’m still being denied. There are Bibles everywhere.”
Jim Arnott, the Greene County sheriff, last year generally described the accommodations afforded Muslims in the jail. That was after six Islamic inmates sued Arnott and other officials in federal court, claiming religious discrimination. That case is also pending, but only one plaintiff, Scott Fonseca, remains.
Arnott declined to address specific accusations in 2013 but said the jail has Qurans and that the kitchen will prepare meals at special times to allow for the observance of Ramadan. He said the jail relies on the Islamic Center of Springfield to provide a religious leader for the inmates.
Filings in the 2013 lawsuit said that during Ramadan, a month where observant Muslims fast during the day, Islamic inmates were fed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 30 days.