April 30, 2014 All interviews with inmates are requested and approved through the Warden’s office, and a “lay in” slip is ordinarily given to the inmate the night before the interview. This process was followed in the case of the April 30 scheduled interviews at the Wynne Unit. However, the inmates did not know who would be conducting the interview prior to the scheduled time. The inmates dutifully came to the area adjacent to the Ins utional Parole Office on the morning of April 30, prior to the 11am time listed on their lay in slips. They sat together and briefly spoke about the purpose of their lay ins. As anyone, except perhaps Ms. Freeman, can imagine, nearly all prisoners who have been incarcerated for 20 plus years are extremely eager to finally get an opportunity to sit and talk to a person who literally holds the keys to the prison in their hands.
A little while after the men came into the room adjoining the Parole Office Wynne, one of them looked through the glass of the door to the room they were in and saw Ms. Freeman. He recognized Freeman because he had seen her several years earlier. He promptly informed the other men that Ms. Freeman was going to be the person who would perform the interviews.
What happened next is very troubling. It was 11am, and the interviews were supposed to begin. A moment later, Ms. Freeman packed up her things and left. She did not say one word to any of the men who were waiting to be interviewed. In fact, she was never even in the same room with any of the men. The personnel at the prison did nothing to discourage or prevent Ms. Freeman from doing her job that day. In fact, the opposite is true. Nonetheless, Ms. Freeman left without any obvious excuse or justification.
At least a couple of the men saw Ms. Freeman walk right past the glass window to the room’s door on her way out. The men were confused at first, but they stayed and waited to be told what was going on. A few moments later, they were informed that the interviews were not going to happen on that day afterall. At least one of the men asked when the interviews would be re-scheduled, and TDCJ Parole personnel told the men that it was unknown when the interviews would occur. Then, the men were all excused and sent off to go back to their normal daily routines.
How The Lie Became A Crime
A little later in the day, Ms. Freeman told others at the Huntsville Board Office, including Board Member Chavez, that the men had refused to be interviewed. All five men. Men with very long sentences who had waited twenty plus years to get a chance to meet and speak to the person most able to free them from their prison cells. Yeah, she actually claimed that these men had all blown off their interview opportunities. She tried to make her insane allegation more believable by claiming that the reason behind the refusal was that the men had chosen to eat fried chicken in the prison cafeteria instead of being interviewed. All of them.
After the absurd fried chicken claim, Ms. Freeman do ented the alleged refusals of the men to be interviewed in official records and in the computer system. Aside from her own false claim, she also knew that the other voter(s) would rely upon the false information during their decision making process.
One of the men at Wynne who had been waiting to be interviewed happened to be represented by attorney Mary Samaan, an experienced parole attorney from Houston. Ms. Samaan was quickly made aware that her client had not been interviewed, but she initially had no idea why the interview had not taken place. She contacted the Huntsville Board Office and soon learned that Ms. Freeman was claiming that her client had refused the interview. Ms. Samann knew this was a preposterous claim, and did what she could to make Ms. Freeman understand that her client had been waiting to be interviewed and had not refused the interview.
Ms. Freeman did not enjoy being challenged by Ms. Samaan, and in typical Pam Freeman fashion, Ms. Freeman became angry and belligerent. It is my understanding that parole personnel from Wynne also challenged Ms. Freeman’s claims as soon as these claims were known by them. To no avail. Ms. Freeman had lied, and rather than apologize or even claim that she had simply been wrong, she maintained her ridiculous factual allegations. To this day, to my knowledge, she has never admitted that she lied. All of the men at Wynne who had supposedly refused the interview by Parole Commissioner Freeman were denied parole.
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