Eleven penitentiary inmates charged for March disturbances

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley talks about charges filed against 11 prison inmates on April 23, 2024, at the Law Enforcement Center in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Two correctional officers were injured, a metal cell block gate was damaged and a handful of fires were set during a two-day disturbance at the South Dakota State Penitentiary last month.

But the situation was not a “riot,” Attorney General Marty Jackley said Tuesday morning. 

“Prison officials never lost control,” Jackley said. He held a press conference at the Law Enforcement Center in Sioux Falls to announce charges against 11 inmates stemming from the disturbance.

The shutdown of tablet-based communications weeks beforehand had primed inmates for violence, Jackley confirmed. 

“The tablet issue, I think, instigated or began the disagreement between the guard and the inmate,” he said. “And of course …that guard had nothing to do with whether or not there would be tablets or not.”

Gov. Kristi Noem issued a written statement following Jackley’s press conference praising the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and Jackley for leading the inquiry into the incidents of March 27 and 28.

“The safety and security of our corrections officers depends on holding those responsible for the violence accountable for their actions,” Noem said. “The Department of Corrections has been and will continue to be fully cooperative with all aspects of this investigation and prosecution as these charges move forward.”

Veteran officer, aiding new DOC employees, attacked after chapel

The details of the situation are laid out in an affidavit filed to support criminal charges against the 11 residents of the penitentiary’s East Hall, the wing of the 143-year-old building where the trouble took place. An affidavit is a document of sworn testimony — in this case from Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Jon Basche — used to request arrest warrants. 

Everything started after church on the afternoon of March 27. 

The veteran officer who’d be injured most severely during the unrest had volunteered to handle the mandatory lock-up and count that followed the 2:30 p.m. chapel service for East Hall’s “harder tiers.” Two of the officers assigned to East Hall were there for their first day at work, he told Agent Basche, and the inmates on the upper two of the cell block’s five tiers had a history of being difficult. 

Before he got to the “harder tiers,” however, he noticed a gaggle of inmates standing against the wall on the third tier. That was unusual, he told the DCI agent. 

He approached 45-year-old Joshua David Vortherms, who was standing with the group, and said, “Hey, boss. Where do you live?”

“The inmate replied ‘go f*ck yourself,’” the affidavit said. 

The officer asked Vortherms to go to his cell, but he refused with another four-letter word and demanded the officer “give us our phones back,” the document said. 

Vortherms allegedly hurried off at that point, prompting the officer to follow “at a walking pace” in order to “not make a scene.” When he approached Vortherms to place him in hand restraints and put him against a wall to do so, Vortherms allegedly hit the officer twice. The officer fell to the ground, and he told the DCI agent he didn’t remember much after that.

Another officer, this one with five months on the job, intervened to pull the veteran officer out of a headlock chokehold. The newer officer used pressure points, strikes and, eventually, a chokehold to get Vortherms off of his coworker, sustaining injuries as Vortherms threw elbows. Another coworker also intervened, and Vortherms was placed in restraints and escorted away.

The first two officers went to a local hospital for an evaluation; the first told the DCI agent he’d sustained a concussion and muscle sprains in his neck.

The altercation was captured by several security cameras, but the cameras did not record audio, the affidavit said.

Vortherms, when interviewed by two DCI agents, denied being the aggressor. When asked about his first victim losing consciousness, the affidavit says, he said, “Well that’s because he’s a f*cking idiot.”

Fires on day two

Vortherms is charged with the four most serious offenses. He’s facing two counts of aggravated assault for the first altercation, and two additional counts of simple assault against a law enforcement officer for allegedly swinging elbows at the newer officer who intervened.

On the first day of the unrest, following the first altercation, inmates one floor below began to yank and tear at a mesh on two gates on either end of the tier. The video camera at one of the gates was damaged, but other camera angles showed an inmate securing the south gate with a bedsheet to keep officers out, the court documents say, and showed others later pushing a metal storage locker through it. 

“These actions created a large opening in the gate,” the affidavit says.

Another inmate yanked at the mesh on the north gate “when other inmates were kicking and pulling the gate.”

“The metal mesh was eventually torn away from the frame allowing inmates to pass through the gate,” the affidavit says.

Inmates eventually returned to their cells, the affidavit says, though it does not specify how DOC staff got them to do so.

The following evening, four inmates allegedly started fires in East Hall from their cells shortly after 8:30 p.m. Two inmates in adjacent cells had lit items on fire, including towels, a denim jacket and a bedsheet, and at one point one of them passed a burning bedsheet to the other.

Jackley declined to say how the inmates lit the fires.

The burning items were later tossed onto a wheelchair outside the cell, the affidavit said, which also ignited. Staff extinguished that fire, as well as others started in at least two other cells. 

Unanswered questions

Neither the affidavit, nor any of the words about it spoken during Jackley’s press conference, explained how the DOC was able to quash the unrest. 

Jackley could not say how many inmates altogether were involved in the unrest, saying only that the 11 men charged had committed crimes.

As for the others, Jackley said, “The involvement might not have been to the level of criminal activity, it may be to the level that the Department of Corrections handles it administratively.” 

It’s also unclear if any criminal behavior sparked the March 8 tablet communication shutdown. Gov. Noem said on March 28 that the tablets were being used for purposes that were “not good and not legal.”

Family members of inmates have expressed frustration over the communication shutdown, with many saying they feel that all 3,600 South Dakota inmates spread across multiple facilities, and their families, are being punished for the actions of a few. 

Inmates are currently allowed five phone calls per day, from either their tablets or wall phones, with 20-minute time limits. The tablet-based messaging functions remain disabled.

Jackley said the tablet changes in early March were “an administrative decision” from the DOC, and confirmed that the DCI is not investigating masses of inmates for tablet-related criminal activity prior to March 27.

Jackley said the tablets figure into his office’s investigation only as they pertain to the alleged assaults, not because of anything they may have been used for before the March 8 shutdown.

He has no position on how the devices ought to be managed, he said, only on what the inmates allegedly did in response to their loss of texting and calling privileges.

“If a cable TV is not offered or tablet is not offered or something of that nature, the appropriate remedy is not to beat up a guard,” Jackley said. “There will be consequences for that.”

An email sent to DOC spokesperson Michael Winder on Tuesday was met with an auto-reply saying he’d be out of the office until Wednesday. The department has released information only through news releases, memos and emails since the disturbances and has not made anyone available for an interview. 

Inmates facing charges

Eleven inmates were charged Tuesday with alleged crimes related to two days of unrest at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in March. All are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and none have yet made an initial court appearance.

Joshua David Vortherms, 45, is charged with aggravated assault against a corrections employee and simple assault against a corrections employee. The ag assault charges carry up to 25 years in prison; the simple assault charges carry up to two.

Six inmates were charged with intentional damage to property valued between $2,500 and $5,000, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison:

• Lee David Bernard, 32.

• Taylor Dallas Cook, 22.

• Markos James Fernandez, 19.

• John Wesley Lovejoy, 25.

• Connor David Shockey, 20.

• Chaske Michael White, 50.

Four inmates are charged with reckless burning, which carries up to 10 years in prison, and burning within a structure where a person is lawfully confined, which carries up to two.

• James Ewing, 41.

• Curtis Carpenter, 39.

• Michael Hewitt, 41.

• Mahlon Kirkie, 35.

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