Greg Brown starts serving his time

Former Sheriff and Sisters resident Greg Brown reported this week to Nellis Prison in North Las Vegas to start serving his 33-month sentence for embezzling $575,000 from the Deschutes County Sheriff's Department and from the Sisters-Camp Sherman Rural Fire Protection District.

Brown made restitution of 98 percent of that sum before his sentencing 45 days ago. He turned himself in this weekend and spent time in a local Oregon jail before being transported to Nellis.

The warden at the minimum security male prison facility is Janice Killian. Her public information officer, Pamela Holloway, reported that on Monday of this week there were 617 inmates in the "camp" that is located on the grounds of the Nellis Air Force base.

"There are no private or single cells," Holloway said. "All inmates are housed in rooms of four or eight men each."

The temperature there this week was in the mid-70s, "but it does get hot in the summer, between 115 and 120 degrees is not unusual," she said.

"Some of the men go to work at the Air Force base doing menial jobs and others work here on landscaping or food services. Everyone works," Holloway said. "We also have inmates in food service who prepare and serve meals. Others clean the dining room and other public areas and some help with mechanical services if they have those skills."

Each prisoner is responsible for cleaning his own "dorm room," making his own bed and maintaining his foot locker and doing other common labor.

There is a Continuing Education program at Nellis in which several inmates teach classes including courses leading to a basic high school certificate, "if they have that proficiency. Several of our teachers come from colleges and universities in this area to help teach so that our prisoners are not wasting their time here," she said.

There is no parole from a federal penitentiary. Most of those incarcerated are there because of illegal drug transportation or sale of drugs and major business crimes.

Recently released Franciscan Louis Vitale, known on the streets of San Francisco as Father Louie, made headlines recently when he was sentenced to an unlikely three months at Nellis for trespassing on federal property when he and others "invaded" a military base in protest of war issues.

Brown will find among his leisure time activities several TV and card rooms, a softball field, a "weight and conditioning area in an outside shelter, and a gymnasium," said Holloway.

"We have no golf course here as they reportedly do at our federal prison camp in Lompoc, California, near the Vandenberg Air Force Base."

Nellis Prison, informally called "The Camp," is located about 30 minutes south of Las Vegas, "where most of the corrections officers live, and 20 miles north of Lake Mead," Holloway said.

A neighbor of Brown's in Tollgate said that Brown reportedly will keep his home there, now occupied by a friend.

The whereabouts of Brown's German Shepherd guard dog, Rocky, is unknown.