CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
Three out-of-state anti-NATO protesters accused of making Molotov cocktails and planning a violent attack during the international summit have been kept in isolation in the Cook County Jail, one of the men's attorney's told a judge Tuesday.
"They have been kept in isolation without reading or writing material," Michael Deutsch told Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. at a preliminary court hearing at which the judge set a June 12 date for the trio's indictment, the Sun-Times is reporting.
Deutsch later told FOX Chicago News the isolation has caused "severe psychological damage" to the three men — Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Vincent Betterly.
"They're being kept in a hospital white cell, totally in isolation from everyone else in the jail and each other, 24 hours a day," Deutsch, who is Church's attorney, said after the brief court hearing: "It's a kind of sensory deprivation situation for them. This is way to break someone's spirit.
"When you start to call people terrorists, then you really change how they're treated by the jail because [jail officials are] concerned someone is going to attack them because they're terrorists or they're going to attack somebody else," Deutsch said. "You're stigmatizing them."
FOX Chicago News has learned that County Jail employees have complained about racially-charged comments by defendant Brent Betterly. A correctional officer filed a written report that Betterly declared: "Blacks should only speak when spoken to." Despite the provocation, the report added that African-American jail workers "remained professional and escorted (Betterly) to his cell..." Another source claimed that since then, Betterly has said virtually nothing to guards and other jail workers.
When we told Betterly's lawyers what we had learned, one of them discussed it with Betterly. We were told: "He says he absolutely did not engage in that conduct. He hasn't used racial slurs. He doesn't hold any kind of racist beliefs."
Earlier on Tuesday, Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Chase, 27, of Keene, N.H.; and Betterly, 24 of Oakland Park, Fla., appeared before Bourgeois in beige jail garb.
Lawyers Tom Durkin and Joshua Herman filed their court appearances as Chase's attorneys, while defense attorneys Molly Armour, Lillian McCartin, Paul Brayman said they'd be representing Betterly.
Afterward, the defense lawyers maintained their clients' innocence and raised questions about their arrest after undercover officer's infiltrated their group.
"If these people are terrorists, everyone can sleep well tonight," Durkin said. "They did not come here to cause violence."
The men are accused of plotting to attack President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters and Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home, and to firebomb police stations and squad cars, declaring that after the NATO Summit "the city will never be the same," according to police and prosecutors.
(Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.)
