KANSAS CITY — The federal public defender’s office has asked for 67 inmates to be released from federal prison and plans to also seek freedom for more than 150 others because authorities at a Kansas prison secretly recorded conversations between the prisoners and their attorneys that are supposed to be private.
Most of the federal inmates are being held in drug or firearms-related cases.
The practice first came to light in a prison contraband case during which criminal defense lawyers discovered the privately-run Leavenworth Detention Center was routinely recording meetings and phone conversations between attorneys and their clients. A court-appointed expert was brought in to independently investigate.
A judge will hear arguments on a motion to have the government declared in contempt for its conduct during the probe.
