January 6 political hostage Ryan Samsel could barely stand when he woke up on Thursday morning.
The same throbbing pain that pierced through his left arm in 2021, where doctors discovered blood clots, is surging through his massively swollen left leg.
Locked in the hole of the DC gulag, he calls the correctional officers for help begging to see a doctor to no avail.
The Supreme Court of the United States has long held that jails and prisons cannot deny essential medical care to people who are incarcerated, deeming medical deprivation to be cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution. But activist federal judges are having a field day abridging the Bill of Rights.
When Samsel realized he couldn’t stand, he screamed in agony again for help asking to be taken to medical, but the nurse on duty was fast asleep and ignored his pleas.
The hole of the Washington DC Correctional Treatment Facility where January 6 defendants are held in unconstitutional pretrial custody is less restrictive than solitary confinement in other jails and prisons.
Inmates in the hole are allowed out of their ten-by-five dog cage-size cell for about three hours a day and are allowed to step outside, into another small barbwire-covered cage, for a few minutes to breathe in fresh air.
The limited movement is exacerbating Samsel’s deteriorating condition which he suspects is caused by another blood clot as the pain gets more severe by the day.
“I’m stuck in the bed because of the clot in my leg,” Samsel told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview. “I ask the guards to take me to medical nearly every day. They don’t care. It’s my judge who is at fault. I beg her, ‘Please, I’m really in pain!’ And she says nothing. She doesn’t care. She’s not going to do anything about it. I don’t know what else to do. I mean… I really don’t know what to do.
“She has denied the outside hospital recommendations. Before I was arrested, I was scheduled for surgery. I’ve been to three hospitals in jail and at all three jail hospitals my file was marked ‘urgent,’ saying I needed surgery and blood thinners.
“I am dying little by little. I am in lockdown. I beg that you get the public to please call my Judge Jia Cobb, the DC Marshal or the jail. I can’t even walk. I need emergency medical attention along with the surgery that will help restore the blood flow back to my heart from my left arm due to the long-standing clots. I have scar tissue that needs to be removed. I truly am in fear. I can’t feel my leg and the jail won’t send me to the hospital because they don’t have my medical records.
“I am unable to reach my lawyer Stanley Woodward and don’t have the money he needs to file an appeal to the judge to receive medical treatment. So, I am stuck.”
**PLEASE SUPPORT RYAN SAMSEL’S FUND FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT HERE**
Samsel has a history of suffering from blood clots. In March 2021, two months after he was apprehended by the FBI, he received a medical examination for a cist on his chest that was oozing with blood while detained in a Lewisburg, Virginia jail.
Doctors in the Virginia correctional facility told him to follow up with a specialist to determine whether the cist was a malignant tumor or cancer.
Instead of scheduling the appointment for surgery, Samsel was transferred to the DC gulag, where he was brutally assaulted by correctional officers. Following the beat down, he lost vision in his right eye and began suffering from seizures. He was taken to the emergency room where doctors found a blood clot in his arm.
Instead of providing treatment, Samsel was again transferred to Philadelphia jail where he was locked in a “hard cell” and starved. Another J6 defendant, Zachary Rehl, housed on the floor above him would send him food and coffee to sustain himself from a rope made with sheets through the toilet.
Samsel initially called TGP last week in good spirits to address claims that the viral photos published by TGP, where he is seen locked in a broom closet, are bogus.
Samsel cautioned his former attorney Bill Shipley leaked the photos without his knowledge or consent and erroneously claimed they were captured in New York jail. This reporter spoke to inmates who were detained with Samsel in Philadelphia and they confirmed the jail guards, in fact, locked Samsel in the closet in retaliation for receiving food through the toilet. Meanwhile, his health took a severe turn for the worse.
Samsel and his family are calling on our readers to put pressure on the “honorable” Judge Cobb to do the right thing and allow him to see a doctor.
“I’ve been in the hole since I was transferred back to the DC 45 days ago. It’s very small,” Samsel said. “They let us out of our cells only a few hours a day. Honestly, compared to what I have been through in the past, it’s better. I wake up with roaches and mice. Once in a while, you’ll get a visit from old Henry, a big old rat. But he is not a bother, he’s chill.
“I can’t even sue for my assaults. My former lawyer, Bill Shipley, at least tried to file a civil suit and Judge Cobb denied the suit without a hearing. I have no clue what to do.
“If somebody can help me, anybody, I just need medical attention. If Congress sees this please help me get to a hospital. I was so desperate I even called my judge’s chambers and she refused to ask the jail to see me. This is an emergency.”
J6 defendant Jake Lang, who founded SponsorJ6.com to help provide January 6 defendants with adequate legal counsel, is locked in the hole alongside Samsel. Lang is assisting Samsel with finding the lawyer who could save his life.
“We are still looking for a lawyer who will stand up to the occasion and take on the DOJ for its gross indifference to Ryan’s medical problems. If it wasn’t for TGP and SponsorJ6.com, my brother Ryan really would be left alone in this battle. He has been badly abused by prison guards at multiple facilities and consistently been targeted for being a relentless patriot who won’t surrender to the DOJ,” Lang told TGP in an exclusive interview. “I love Ryan for who he is, and though we don’t agree on everything, overall I’m glad he’s on our side. We are both in the hole, in solitary confinement, and must watch each other’s backs. Thank you to the American people who support us, please donate to Ryan’s family fund.”
**PLEASE SUPPORT RYAN SAMSEL’S FUND FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT HERE**
If Samsel doesn’t see a doctor soon, he could die any moment, contends bioethicist and legal nurse consultant Wendy Olsen.
“As a frontline nurse, I have witnessed the positive and negative outcomes of patients who develop blood clots. When blood clots are identified and immediately treated with mediatizations, the life expectancy of a patient will increase. When a patient is denied medical treatment for a blood clot, it could lead to stroke or pulmonary embolus in the lungs, both easily resulting in death,” Nurse Wendy Olson, RN, MSN-RA, wrote in a Nov. 30, 2022 letter to Judge Cobb.
“Once it’s identified it has to be treated or you don’t know when it can move and result in the death of your patient.”
Olson has not been able to verify whether Samsel’s attorney has provided the judge with the letter or the judge has refused to act despite her warning.
Samsel’s situation is not an anomaly or aberration within the prison system. Every defendant who is sick or reliant on medications or medical treatment is given a death sentence in prison, a long-ignored system blackhole, contends legal nurse consultant and bioethicist Wendy Olson.
“This is a systemic issue in every bureau of prisons across the United States. J6ers have contacted me from the East Coast to the West Coast about the BOP refusing to give them medications, even chemotherapy,” Olson told TGP in an exclusive interview. “Because the DOJ is failing to provide their life-saving medications, they might as well have been sentenced to death. The medications we take for granted — those who need cholesterol medications are at risk for stroke, and blood pressure medication is put at risk for heart attack. One who was arrested after he had already been diagnosed with cancer, had not received treatment and by the time he was released from prison, the cancer had metastasized.
“These attorneys could be doing more for their clients and they’re not. I have provided analysis of these inmates’ medical histories. I’ve even crafted legal cases so their attorneys could see precedents set in similar cases to their clients — I’ve done everything to make it easier for their attorneys to help their clients get medical treatment and to my knowledge, nothing ever comes of that work I’ve done. These attorneys took an oath to advocate for their clients and they are not advocating as they are supposed to. And if you look at the judges, it’s clear none of them are impartial. Justice is not blind. I wrote to Samsel’s judge over a year ago!”
In April, the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs filed a class action lawsuit against the DC Department of Corrections for depriving inmates of medical care.
“Each of the individuals named in the lawsuit has suffered serious harm due to dangerous and systemic deficiencies in the D.C. Jail’s health care system, ranging from failing to biopsy or otherwise diagnose a mass in a patient’s testicle for more than a year to repeatedly failing to provide vital medication to a patient with chronic heart failure. One patient has been nearly blind for the duration of his incarceration because the jail has failed to consistently provide him with the medicated eye drops and prescription eyeglasses that he needs to see,” according to a statement issued by the WLC.
Samsel is not yet a plaintiff in the complaint.
Judge Cobb is slated to announce a verdict on Samsel’s case on January 4.
** Please call or write a letter to Judge Jia Cobb and demand she allow Ryan Samsel to receive adequate medical care.
The Honorable Jia M. Cobb
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse
333 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 354-3560
[email protected]
US Marshalls DC
202-772-0301
A member of Samsel’s family who asked her name be withheld said she has persistently fought with Samsel’s attorneys and the US Marshalls to provide him with life-saving treatment.
“His pain is severe. The nurse who was on call was sleeping and just ignored his yells!” Samsel’s loved one told TGP in an exclusive interview. “The next day, he tried again to get help and they said they would not give him any treatment. The doctors and nurses need medical records transferred over to them to find out his condition. I have fought with his lawyer to send medical records over to the jail. The US Marshalls aren’t doing anything — we’ve gotten into a screaming match on the phone saying that they can’t help and want nothing to do with it. He is under US Marshall custody. I told them, ‘If anything happens to him it’s going to be on your hands.’”
