Mourning Mair.

Richard Mair, early on in his confinement

Richard Mair refused to testify falsely about Jeffrey Abramowski in Brevard County, Florida. This is the statement that Richard provided to Jeff, which specifically mentioned deputy Harrell’s insistence that DNA would implicate Jeff. It did, but only because the “expert” lied about the results … two out of 15 markers is never, ever a “hit.”

Richard Mair, closer to his suicide

Richard was convicted, too (and may be as innocent as Jeff, for all I know: Brevard County is adept at frame-ups). In 2013, Richard was transferred to the very same mental health unit at Dade Correctional Institution where Darren Rainey had been scalded to death in a locked shower the year before, the same externally-temperature controlled shower used to punish other mentally ill inmates for being mentally ill, while Corizon mental health professionals kept quiet. Richard filed a grievance about the treatment that he and others were enduring, a grievance that should have gotten immediate attention, given what had happened to Darren. The redactions to Richard’s grievance were made by the Florida Department of Corrections, not me. Note the other parties that Richard sent his grievance to: the copies they received were not redacted; they know more about Richard being beaten than I do.

Richard decided to take his own life, rather than have it taken from him by corrections officers in humiliating and painful increments, with Corizon mental health personnel still playing deaf, dumb and blind more than a year after Darren Rainey’s homicide (and with some apparently participating in the corruption). Richard risked getting caught writing a tell-all suicide note and subsequently being tortured to death by officers that had bragged to him about getting away with murder, just as he’d risked getting on the wrong side of Brevard officers by tipping Jeff Abramowski off. After his understandably outraged accounting of the reasons for his desperate act, Richard wrote a P.S. after speaking to the Inspector General and being ignored in person, rather than via grievance: “I give up, my hope has been dashed on the rocks. I’m one soldier trying to protect about 80 in here. See ya on the farside.”

I’d be honored to meet Richard on the far side. I’ve no reservations concerning his racist and homophobic description of officers: it’s improbable that the scores of inmates he was trying to protect were all white and “straight,” and too many people I know only seek to protect one person of one color and one sexual orientation – themselves. The best way to honor Richard Mair’s attempts to protect others is to fight for Jeff Abramowski’s exoneration, so that Jeff and his family can express their gratitude publicly.

Jeffrey Abramowski: still innocent; still incarcerated, despite Richard Mair’s efforts to protect him