The San Francisco Examiner - Sunday, April 20, 1997
Julian Guthrie of the Examiner Staff

The HIV-positive woman, released from prison early because of her terminal condition, savored the simple pleasures of freedom Saturday, like being able to open a window and let fresh air in. But Contreras, 35, didn't mince words when describing Gov. Wilson or the conditions in prison.

Of Wilson, who granted her "compassionate release" from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla late Friday, Contreras said Saturday: "He can go to hell."

There was little mirth in the voice of the 75-pound, 5-foot-tall Contreras, who will live out her life at the Catholic Charities' Belmont House in Belmont.

"I'm going to be their nightmare," Contreras said, angered over her medical treatment in prison. "They give you food that's garbage. They give you the wrong medications. They don't have skilled nurses. They treat you like you're 6 feet under."

After serving 10 years and 9 months of her 15-years-to-life second-degree murder sentence, Contreras became the third terminally ill inmate the current state Board of Prison Terms has recommended for "compassionate release."

"This is a victory of compassion," said attorney Cynthia Chandler of Women's Positive Legal Action Network in Oakland, who waited at the prison gate to tearfully embrace her client. "It means she won't be forgotten. She won't die alone. And she won't die before she casts a spotlight on the terrible medical conditions in prison."

Contreras, a native American and illegal immigrant from Mexico, is part of a class-action lawsuit filed against the Department of Corrections, alleging medical neglect and mistreatment in two of the state's largest women's prisons: the Chowchilla facility and the California Institution for Women in Frontera.

Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh responded late Saturday to Contreras' caustic words directed at the governor by saying, "how pleasant" and "there's no pleasing some people."

Walsh said the governor let the board's recommendation stand and granted "early parole" after days of "very serious review."

"The arguments made by her attorney and the prisoner were compelling," Walsh said. "But the bottom line is that the governor won't release a prisoner until it's medically demonstrated that the individual is no longer a threat to the general public."

The Board of Prison Terms denied Contreras early release a year ago and refused again last September.

As Contreras' condition worsened - an HIV specialist has given her three weeks to three months to live - hundreds of people, organized by the HIV / AIDS in Prison Project of Catholic Charities of the East Bay, wrote letters on Contreras' behalf.

She became, as her attorney says, a "rallying symbol" for the estimated 1,000 HIV-infected women in California prisons.

Contreras was sentenced to prison after she confessed to being a decoy in a 1986 robbery of a Los Angeles woman.

The woman, who was hit over the head during the robbery, later died of complications from the head injury. The two men allegedly responsible for the robbery, Contreras' ex-husband and friend, never served time for the crime.
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