Help reunite Jayci Yaeger with her father
Posted by: reformedhippie in Culture, tags: jaci yaeger prisons
By now everyone should know the story of Jayci Yaeger, the 10-year-old Nebraska girl diagnosed with terminal brain cancer who is not expected to live through the end of the month. Her dying wish is to see her father one more time.
But her father, Jason Yaeger, is currently serving the final year of a five-year sentence for a drug conviction at the minimum security prison camp in Yankton, South Dakota. He is due to be transfered to a halfway house in August where he would be an hours drive away from the hospice. Clearly not a career criminal. However the Federal Bureau of Prisons has denied the child’s dying wish and refuses to furlough or transfer him earlier so that he could be by his daughter’s side.
He has pleaded repeatedly with prison officials to honor the bureau’s apparent policy of allowing furloughs and transfers under “extraordinary” circumstances, but has been rebuffed time and again. The prison has refused to comment on the case due to privacy reasons. But in a letter to Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska dated February 20th, a regional director from the Department of Justice wrote that “although Mr. Yaeger believes his daughter’s severe medical condition constitutes ‘extraordinary justification,’ a review of his case reveals this specific request was … reviewed … and denied … because his circumstances were not deemed to rise to the level of extraordinary.”
Jayci has been allowed three escorted visits with her father, but each trip lasts only a couple of hours and costs the family hundreds of dollars. “We’ve never asked them to release him early. Never asked them to change anything. We’ve asked them to just give him some time to be here,” his wife Vonda Yaeger said.
Emails and phone calls have been made to prison officials yet the denial stands. The Federal Bureau of Prisons Web site states its policy regarding furloughs is that they can be allowed for a family crisis and that decision is left to the warden.
What can be more of a family crisis than this? Only a bureaucrat knows. No really. “We’ve asked them numerous times, ‘What is an extraordinary circumstance?’” said Vonda Yaeger. “They danced around it. They don’t give you a direct answer.”
The only other option left open to them is to ask President Bush for clemency, which the family has done. If Bush could do it for good old Scooter Libby then why not this guy?
So if you would, please email the President and First Lady at comments@whitehouse.gov. And while you are at it you can email Cheney at vice_president@whitehouse.gov.
God forgive those heartless bureaucrats.
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