Another Thomson inmate faces murder charge in death of cellmate

ROCKFORD — An fourth inmate at Thomson federal prison was indicted Tuesday on second-degree murder and assault charges in the Dec. 15, 2021 death of a fellow inmate, U.S. District Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. said in a news release Wednesday.

Donta Maddox, 44, is accused of fatally assaulting his cellmate, Bobby Everson, 36, who was found unresponsive after a fight, according to an indictment returned in federal court in Rockford and previous releases.

Second-degree murder carries up life in federal prison, while the maximum sentence for the assault charge is 10 years.

On June 15, 2016, Maddox was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Georgia to seven years for possession of a firearm by a felon. The sentence included a recommendation for mental health treatment.

Everson was sentenced Aug. 4, 2014, in New York federal court to 10 years, one month for possession with intent to deliver cocaine and 10 years for being a felon in possession of a firearm, sentences to be served concurrently. He also was recommended for mental health treatment.

On June 28, Houston A. Clyde, 25, was indicted on charges of second-degree murder, assault resulting is serious bodily injury and possession of a weapon in the death of his cellmate and fellow Navajo, Edsel Aaron Badoni, 37, of Blue Gap, Arizona.

Clyde, of Tuba City, Arizona, pleaded guilty in federal court in Arizona on July 9, 2018, to second-degree murder and was sentenced that Sept. 24 to 17 years 6 months. According to his plea agreement, Clyde killed a man on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation on April 16, 2016, by hitting him multiple times in the head with a baseball bat.

He, too, was recommended to receive mental health treatment.

Badoni, also a member of the tribe and a resident of the Navajo reservation, was serving nearly 14 years for assault with a deadly weapon, assault resulting in serious bodily injury and discharging a firearm during a violent crime.

In December, inmates Brandon C. Simonson and Kristopher S. Martin, both 38 and members of the Valhalla Bound Skinheads, were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder, and hate crimes, all of which carry up to life in prison, and assault resulting is serious bodily injury, which carries 10 years.

They beat Matthew Phillips, 31, of Texas, to death because he was Jewish, according to their indictments. Phillips was found unresponsive with life-threatening head injuries the morning of March 2, 2020. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead three days later, the Bureau of Prisons reported at the time.

Four other inmates killed at Thomson prison, according to the bureau, are:

Boyd Weekley, 49, of South Dakota, who was found unresponsive at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 3, 2020, after a fight with another inmate.

Two weeks later, on Dec. 18, 2020, Patrick Bacon, 36, was found unresponsive in his cell around midnight. His death was ruled a suicide, his mother, Shelley Bacon, told Sauk Valley Media.

On Feb 28, 2021, Shay Paniry, 41, an Israeli mobster from of of Studio City, California, was found in an unspecified area of the prison with life-threatening injuries.

James Everett, 35, was found unresponsive in an unspecified area of the Carroll County prison and pronounced dead around 8:30 p.m. March 15, the victim of a homicide, the bureau reported.

In the wake of the deaths, and a report by National Public Radio and the Marshall Project , on June 1 the Illinois Congressional delegation called for a Justice Department investigation into allegations that inmates are being mistreated at the prison, and that “serious abuses” by staff members are egging on some of the violence.

The report’s most serious allegations included staff encouraging assaults against sex offenders and informants, and leaving men shackled to a bed for hours in their own urine and feces without food or water. It also says staff laughed at Phillips as he lay dying after his assault, which occurred after he was placed in a recreation cage with known white supremacists.