PORTLAND, OREGON — Malik Muhammad, a U.S. Army veteran and political activist sentenced to 10 years in Oregon state prison, was transferred to South Carolina despite a plea agreement specifying imprisonment in Oregon.
In March, a scheduled attorney-client call between Muhammad and attorney Lauren Regan was canceled without explanation. Regan searched the Oregon Inmate Tracker for Muhammad's status and found no record. Muhammad's status was absent from state prison tracking systems for multiple weeks. In late April, Muhammad sent a letter to their partner from Kirkland Correctional Institute in South Carolina. In mid-May, the South Carolina Department of Corrections stated it had no custody record for Muhammad.
Muhammad was arrested in October 2020 after throwing a Molotov cocktail during a protest in East Portland. Muhammad pleaded guilty to state and federal charges, including two counts of unlawful possession of a destructive device. In 2022, Muhammad was sentenced to 10 years in state prison.
Regan is not licensed to practice law in South Carolina. She stated, "I have not been able to speak on the phone or in person in an attorney-client privileged manner since their transfer." Regan hired a locally licensed attorney to meet with Muhammad in person to collect potential evidence. Wanda Bertram, a communications strategist, said, "There's never any effort made by prisons to tell incarcerated people's families, 'Hey, we're moving this person.'"
Regan said Muhammad's ability to remain in Oregon was a condition of the plea agreement. "Normally, they would have been sentenced to the federal prison system. Because their friends and family and supporters at the time were based in Oregon, they explicitly negotiated an outcome that ensured that they would remain in Oregon." Regan said. Muhammad claimed that incarcerated individuals at Kirkland Correctional Institute are denied sufficient water, food, and recreation and are forced to sleep on floor mats that are occasionally confiscated.