Who Is Reginald Williams

            I chose my VIP for this week because his position is different than most outstanding citizen. Reginald Williams is 59 years old and has spent the past 30 years in the Utah State Prison. He is serving a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated robbery. While incarcerated, he has earned four college degrees and completed mandatory therapy programs.

            Williams is in the news because he discovered what appears to be fraud in several State of Utah criminal justice agencies. He filed a lawsuit against the state in 2015 as a whistleblower. The case has since led to a federal investigation with the Department of Justice handling it.

            While working in the prison print shop and watching corrections employees, he noticed fraudulent conduct. He believed that the employees who were paid with funds from grants were violating the terms of the grant awards. The lawsuit accuses the “state criminal justice agencies of illegally accepting millions of dollars in grant and stimulus money.”

            As a whistleblower, Williams is entitled to “a portion of any penalty or fees the government collects.” However, he considers himself to be more of a government watchdog than a whistleblower.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah filed a lawsuit against the state and 18 current and former state administrators in April, claiming they made false representations – including that they lost jobs or would lose jobs to budget cuts – in order to obtain and continue to receive U.S. Department of Justice grants.

            Williams is a good example of what can happen when a person becomes educated. With four degrees, apparently all of them earned behind prison bars, he had to take the classes online. In doing so, he developed “effective research skills” that he used to “convince the DOJ to sue the state and hold officials accountable.”