The Rev. Val Peter has a simple, heartfelt request this Lenten season.
Apologize. Humble yourself. Admit you were wrong. Repent.
This time, Father Peter's target audience isn't a congregation or his former students at Boys Town.
It's the prison officials who have banned him from the Iowa women's prison in Mitchellville, where he used to visit inmate Tracey Dyess.
You read that right: The former executive director of Boys Town is not allowed to enter a women's prison in Iowa.
Peter's yearlong ban began in October after a bizarre string of events in which Peter was stopped after visiting Dyess, his notes were confiscated and he swallowed a scrap of his notes.
That launched a flurry of letters between the priest and the warden in which Peter demanded that officials show him the written policy that says a pastor cannot take out notes from a “privileged” visit with an inmate.
The back-and-forth culminated in a phone call this week from a prison official to Peter's successor at Boys Town, the Rev. Steven Boes — a phone call that Peter said was designed to “neutralize” Peter.
Peter said he found it “more than coincidental” that prison officials targeted his note-taking the day after he insisted that doctors resume giving Dyess her psychotropic medication.
Iowa prison officials have stood behind their suspension of Peter's visiting rights. Corrections spokesman Fred Scaletta said he cannot discuss specifics except to say that Peter violated a rule barring visitors from taking anything into or out of the prison.
In conversations with others, prison officials also reportedly have expressed concern that Peter is making Dyess a “noncompliant prisoner.”
Peter denies this — saying the only thing he has done is stand up for a girl who has no one else.
Peter, who retired in 2005 after 20 years as Boys Town's executive director, began counseling Dyess after the then-17-year-old was arrested for the March 2005 fire that killed her 13-year-old sister and a 6-year-old boy who was living with the family.
Dyess has said she set the fire to end years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by her stepfather, Brian Street, who is serving 30 years in prison for abusing her.
Since then, Peter has been an outspoken critic of the 45-year sentence given to Dyess.
But mostly, Peter says, he has tried to be a friend and an advocate for a young woman who, like many of his former students, had a horrendous childhood.
Dyess, Peter said, has just two people she's close to: himself and a grandmother in Texas.
“You try to befriend people who ain't got nobody else to care about 'em,” Peter said. “It's helpful if someone shows up to see her. It's a way for Tracey to know that someone cares about her.”
The feisty 75-year-old admits that he also has been insistent in trying to make sure that Dyess gets proper treatment. At one point last year, Peter said, Dyess was told that she would have to take over-the-counter medicine, instead of the medication a doctor prescribed to help her with her flashbacks.
Peter said he called the Iowa state ombudswoman, then the prison doctor.
The doctor “was none too happy about that,” Peter said.
The next day, Peter went to visit Dyess at the women's prison in Mitchellville, east of Des Moines. He said he sat with Dyess in the general visiting area and, as he had before, grabbed some scrap paper from the tables.
He said he scribbled some notes “to remember, at my age, what was said.”
As he was leaving, he said, a corrections officer approached him and told him “not to take the notes out of the visitor's room.”
“I reminded her that I had been doing this for years and years,” Peter said.
Peter pointed out that other visitors were leaving with notes in hand. He said a female supervisor approached, “looking like one of those matrons from Auschwitz.”
“She said, ‘It's absolutely forbidden — you can't take those notes out,'” Peter recalled. “I was dumbfounded. It was like walking out of Hy-Vee and being told, ‘You can't take those groceries.'”
Peter said the notes “mostly had the names of volunteer coordinators and prisoners whom I have been corresponding with.”
Peter said the supervisor objected that he had written down the name of a corrections officer. So Peter tore off a gum-wrapper-sized scrap of paper that had the officer's name on it. Seeing no trash can, he balled it up, popped it in his mouth and swallowed it.
“Now I think that objection has been taken care of,” Peter recalled telling her. “I am sorry.”
Peter said the supervisor “took it the wrong way” and demanded the rest of his notes. Peter tore the notes — saying they were the product of privileged communications — before handing her the scraps.
Initially, officials suspended Peter's visiting privileges for a month. Then warden Patti Wachtendorf reviewed reports and suspended him for a year.
“If you disagree with our rules, there are proper procedures you may utilize to express your concern or disagreement,” Wachtendorf wrote to Peter. “Intentionally placing items in your mouth and swallowing those items to avoid giving them to the supervisor is not acceptable behavior.”
Peter fired back in a Nov. 6 letter — saying there was a biblical basis for eating the paper scrap.
“It's a prophetic gesture, Ms. Warden,” Peter wrote. “You probably did not know that. It is what ministers can do in following their vocation. ... See Ezechiel 3!! With this information, I am sure you will write a letter of apology and suspend your suspension.”
Scaletta, the corrections spokesman, said state laws prevent prison officials from responding to Peter's blow-by-blow account. However, he said Peter violated a basic prison rule: “No item shall be removed from the visiting room unless it was approved to be taken in.”
When it comes to taking notes, Scaletta said, pastors don't have the same privilege as an inmate's attorney.
Scaletta bristled at Peter's assertion, in one letter, that he had to give up his notes because “you had the guns and I was unarmed.”
The corrections officers, like most, were not armed, Scaletta said. And, Scaletta said, Peter hasn't been treated differently than any other visitor.
“Absolutely not,” he said.
This week, Scaletta called Boes. Peter said Scaletta told Boes that he thought Peter was making Dyess a noncompliant prisoner — something Peter called an “unwarranted claim.”
Boys Town spokeswoman Kara Neuverth, who confirmed the phone call, said Boes told prison officials that he has no authority over Peter, who is retired.
The phone call prompted Peter to fire off another letter, chastising Scaletta for “a sad power play that backfired.”
Peter has been writing everyone he can — the warden, ombudswoman, reporters — to try to restore face-to-face visits.
Fortunately, he said, he still is able to talk to Dyess by phone. Peter tells her not to worry — advice he admits he would be wise to heed.
“I always tell her the same thing,” he said. “Be calm. Be at peace. Be sure you go to church. And things will all work out.”
Contact the writer:
444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com
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