Kenny Richey sent to Lebanon..the jail in Ohio, that is

FORMER Death Row Scot Kenny Richey has been locked up in one of the toughest prisons in the US to serve a three-year sentence for threatening a judge.

The 48-year-old was sent to the Lebanon Correctional Institution in Ohio, a jail which has featured on the TV show America’s Hardest Prisons.

Friends of Richey said he was now “absolutely petrified” of being attacked by fellow inmates because of his past – and is desperate to serve his sentence and come back to Edinburgh.

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He was convicted in 1987 of an arson attack in Ohio in which a two-year-old girl died, but was freed in January 2008 on a plea bargain and later returned to the Capital.

Richey has been left fearful of being dubbed a “child killer” and left at the mercy of prisoners out to seek retribution.

Friends said Richey applied to be placed away from the general prison population, but his request was denied.

A friend said: “Kenny is absolutely petrified in that prison. It’s got a bad reputation for inmates murdering each other. He knows people in prison will be after him because of the crime he was convicted of. He’s having to watch his back every minute.”

Richey was jailed for three years for phoning in a threat to Judge Randall Basinger, who was an assistant prosecutor in 1986 when Richey was charged with setting the fatal fire.

His friend said: “Kenny got the maximum sentence but he won’t appeal against it. Part of the plea bargain was that he took the three years and promised not to appeal otherwise the authorities back in Minnesota, where he had been living, were going to re-open an old case against him for making ‘terroristic threats’ against police.

“If he puts in an appeal and has his sentence reduced, the minute he gets out the authorities in Minnesota will be after him and that offence carries a 17-year maximum sentence.”

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