COVID-19 outbreak at federal prison turns deadly
EL RENO — A heroin dealer from Memphis died Oct. 23 after being placed in quarantine at the Federal Correctional Institution here.
Joe McDuffie, 58, is the first COVID-19 fatality reported at the mediumsecurity facility for male offenders.
The facility is in the midst of its first major COVID- 19 outbreak of the pandemic. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported 57 inmates and 23 staff were positive for the disease at the facility Thursday. Another 221 inmates and one staff worker were listed as recovered.
McDuffie was indicted in 2012 for his involvement with family members and others in a heroin distribution ring in Tennessee. He was sentenced in 2013 to 15 years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy.
He had been to prison before in the 1990s for drug offenses in Chicago.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons disclosed the death in a news release last week.
McDuffie was placed in quarantine on Oct. 13 due to a contact investigation, according to the news release. He had tested negative at the time.
He had not shown any symptoms of the disease during daily checks but was found unresponsive Oct. 23. He was pronounced deceased the same day.
The inmate had "longterm, preexisting medical conditions which the CDC lists as risk factors for developing more severe COVID- 19 disease," according to the news release. The judge who sentenced him in 2013 was told he had Hodgkin lymphoma, a disease of the lymph nodes.
Thirty inmates and 38 staff at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center were listed as positive Thursday. It had its only COVID-19 death in May.
Texas sex offender Douglas Allen Reid, 56, became ill after arriving at the Federal Transfer Center in March and died May 2 at an Oklahoma hospital, according to the bureau. The Federal Transfer Center serves as a holding facility for inmates being moved across the country.
Overall, 132 federal inmate deaths and two Bureau of Prisons staff deaths have been attributed to COVID-19.