Newsday, the Danbury Times are among the papers carrying the story
All Agnes Kole wants is for Danbury federal prison officials to allow its Jewish inmates to buy such Passover staples as chicken, gefilte fish and smoked salmon like they could for the past 12 years she’s been an inmate.
Instead, Kole claims the prison has cut back the Passover purchase list from 12 items to just matzos, grape juice, chocolate and macaroons.
So Kole, a New Jersey woman, has turned the cutbacks into a federal lawsuit.
“It’s retaliation,” Kole told U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall this week. She claimed the reduction in available items stems from her complaining last year when the prison cut the amount Jewish inmates could spend on Passover food purchases from $290 to $100. Her efforts led to restoration of the higher figure.
The problem? Agnes Kole is not Jewish. She’s a Nigerian who was part of a massive heroin smuggling operation. Only the Newsday story mentions who she really is.
She is a Nigerian national accused of heading a group that brought more than 60 pounds of nearly pure heroin into the United States between November 1990 and August 1993.
Her real name seems to be Zaima Soto Muwanga. And the odds of her being Jewish are about as good as me being Nigerian.
Kosher food was about religious accommodation in prisons. But many prisoners who are not Jewish who make a career out of suing prisons are exploiting Kosher religious accommodations are piggybacking on it.
Remember Norman Lee Toler, the Neo-Nazi with SS Tattoos who decided he was Jewish and wanted Kosher food?
Missouri prison inmate Norman Lee Toler was once labeled as a white supremacist, after, authorities say, he was caught in an Illinois penitentiary with seven photos of Adolf Hitler and a fresh “SS” tattoo.
This week, however, Toler was in federal court in St. Louis, saying he is Jewish and that his soul will be in jeopardy if he is forced to eat nonkosher food.
Inmates in today’s prisons have often gotten good at using and playing the system by demanding their rights under the regulations. Some of those are legitimate, but Nigerians and White Supremacists demanding Kosher food is not.
Samurai Mohel 