Bring Derek Pruitt Home to NYS

My husband (Derek Pruitt) lives in Colorado, I own our house in NYS. We have a 3 month old baby together and 3 children I have that are not of my husband’s. My husband is on “Mandatory” Parole in Colorado. For those not familiar with Mandatory Parole, it means my husband served his entire sentence in prison but still has to serve 3 years parole. If that don’t make sense to you it’s because only 3 US states practice this, Colorado being one of them. Normally when a person does ALL their time there is no parole, they are free.

Being on Parole in Colorado my husband put a transfer in to the interstate compact to transfer his parole to NYS.

Today (May 11, 2009) I was informed that my husband can not parole home with us. NYS Parole in Buffalo denied our request for my husband to come home based on two issues;

1) They say I wasn’t cooperative when my husband absconded and came home last year ..

* This isn’t entirely true. Yes he was with me but I did call Colorado Parole and tell them he was with me, it took them 3 months to come get him. When the police showed up to get him, I admit the first words from my mouth were “he isn’t here”, but then an officer said “can we check” and I said yes, I then willingly let them in the house and even told them where my husband was hiding. The arresting officer told me it wasn’t a big deal because in the end and not even 5 minutes later I was willing to let them in, and retrieve him.

No one ever asked us why he absconded in the first place, had they asked they would have known it was a life threaten ordeal that Colorado Parole refused to address.

2) My husband has one domestic case in Colorado from I think 1999. Buffalo Parole office said they would not allow my husband to reside with me because of that. BUT it had nothing to do with me, I didn’t even know my husband then, AND the same parole office allowed another parolee (Mel) to parole to my house March 2008 and Mel has several previous and newer domestic cases, so why did they allow Mel to live with me when he had more then one domestic case, but will not allow my husband to live with me? Why was my house and me suitable for one parolee but not for my own husband?!

Those were the two reasons the Buffalo Parole office gave when they denied our family to be together, I was in the exact same situation when they allowed one man to live with me and my children, but in the same situation my own husband can not live with us.

I feel we have been discriminated against and I feel the reasoning behind the denial is unjustifiable. I feel NYS is keeping a family apart. They preach how they are all for family and don’t want us on the system (Welfare) but then they tear our families apart and justify it with whatever reasoning they can find.

The purpose of this petition is to bring my husband home! If you also feel NYS should allow my husband (Derek Pruitt) to come home and to watch his first born child (first and last as we can not have any more children) grow as we progress in to a productive and loving family then please sign this petition and let NYS know they are hypocrites for making us New Yorker’s think family is first then breaking us down and keeping us apart and abusing their authority.