Until The Washington Post’s revelation of Bob McDonnell’s rather Cro-Magnon views of homosexuals, family and women, Virginia’s gubernatorial race had been a snoozer.
While a graduate student at Televangelist Pat Robertson’s Regent University in the early 1980s, McDonnell, then in his 30s, posited in a master’s degree thesis how the rise of homosexuals, abortion, divorce and the entry of women into the workplace had threatened that basic building block of U.S. society — the family.
McDonnell, a staunch conservative Republican, quickly backtracked after Gays and women protested his patronizing, if not dangerous, view of them. McDonnell insists that he has “changed” although usually by the time a person is in his or her 30s, the formative years are pretty much over.
Up until now, McDonnell had been running ahead of Democrat Creigh Deeds, a decent policy maker but rather boring candidate. McDonnell exudes a kind of Celtic charm that disguises his hard line ideas that could be bad news as Virginia tries to recast itself as a reasonable, moderate state.
There’s another story about McDonnell that needs telling. This one also raises questions about who the real McDonnell is, just what kind of publicity hound he might be and how some of his public stances can have tragic ends.
Back in the late winter of 2008, McDonnell, then state Attorney General, was mugging for the TV cameras. He was pushing a law enforcement project certain to win him favor with plain folks scared to death of sex offenders and “America First” demagogues pandering to racist fears of dark-skinned, “illegal” immigrants (without whom much of the American economy could not function).
McDonnell was pushing “Operation Coldplay,” a sweep of immigrants, illegal or otherwise who had been convicted of sexual molestation. The State Police and the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement were hailing the roundup.
As part of the roust, a man in Northern Virginia was picked up. He was a 48-year-old German man named Guido R. Newbrough was being held for deportation after he’d been caught in a sweep of past sex molesters who happened to be immigrants.
He was the son of an American Air Force sergeant and a German woman and was a German citizen. With the words “Raised American” tattooed on his arm, he’d lived most of his life in the United States, spoke no German and was considered an American, according to The New York Times.
After his molestation conviction 2002, Newbrough appeared on the mend and had stopped drinking before he was picked up in “Operation Coldplay.” as many arrested immigrants are, he was hauled to the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville to await deportation.
In the Farmville facility, Newbrough complained of an infection. The father of three pleaded for care for 10 days but, according to a federal investigation, prison guards threw him to the ground and locked him in an isolation cell. Found unconscious, he was hospitalized but died the next day. A staph infection had turned a heart ailment fatal.
He was one of 104 immigrants who have died in custody for medical ailments since 2003.
Another twist is that ICA Farmville, a private firm led by a group of Richmond investors, is busy building a $15 million “detention” facility in Farmville that will house up to 775 “illegal” immigrants. It will be run with the Town of Farmville under a contract with ICE. None of the principals has any prison management experience but they hope to get some from, you guessed it, the Piedmont Regional Jail conveniently nearby.
As I wrote this week in Style Weekly, Newbrough’s case has received national publicity. Jeff Winder, a Charlottesville-based organizer with the People United, says that Newbrough’s fatal condition could have been easily treated with antibiotics and that some of the Piedmont Regional Jail officials who oversaw his health are likely to be on the commission that will oversee the ICA-Farmville operation.
“Turning humans over to private companies is wrong,” Winder says. “Their goals are to make dividends for their shareholders and cut costs, not provide adequate care for human beings.”
A lawyer for Legal Aid says that “the immigrant detention system is a disgrace,” and that “there are well-documented cases of medical neglect including Farmville.”
McDonnell got a lot of great press play for his grand-standing on “Operation Coldplay.” But like this master’s thesis, sooner or later, the turkeys will come home to roost.
Peter Galuszka
