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Recent allegations that an Army reservist from Uniontown abused and manhandled Iraqi prisoners are not the first time that Charles A. Graner Jr. was accused of roughing up inmates he was charged with guarding.

Graner, 35, had worked as a county and state prison guard since 1990. According to court documents on file in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, Graner twice before was among a group of defendants sued by inmates for civil rights violations involving accusations of prison abuse.

In one case, Graner and another guard at SCI Greene, the state correctional institution near Waynesburg, Greene County, were accused of forcing an inmate to eat a razor blade. Another inmate contended Graner roughed him up during a search for contraband.

Both inmate lawsuits were dismissed by federal judges, one because the inmate involved couldn't be located after his June 2000 release from prison. The other case was terminated on legal grounds.

According to court documents, Graner and the other prison officials named in the lawsuits denied the accusations.

This week, Graner, through his new lawyer, has denied allegations that he was at fault for the abuse of Iraqi war detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where Graner worked as a military policeman and guard with the 372nd Reserve Unit.

Graner's lawyer, Guy L. Womack of Houston, Texas, said Graner was following orders from his superiors to break down POWs for interrogation when he allegedly abused and humiliated the prisoners. Attempts to reach Womack for comment yesterday on the federal lawsuits were unsuccessful.

Graner reportedly told his Army superiors that he should not be assigned to duty in the prison because of his past problems with alleged abuse of his former wife and children, U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha, a Johnstown Democrat, said yesterday.

"He (Graner) told them he should not be in this kind of situation, and they put him there anyway because they didn't have anyone else," Murtha said, relating a story he was told this week by an unidentified soldier who worked at the Abu Ghraib prison.

"Military intelligence encouraged them to do this ... to take their clothes off, and then they get carried away," Murtha said.

The solder told Murtha that Graner had his photograph taken with the prisoners because "he wanted to protect himself. He wanted to show people what they were forcing him to do."

Graner is among six soldiers of the Cumberland, Md.-based unit facing courts-martial in Iraq on criminal charges of dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts with another person for allegedly abusing detainees at the Iraq prison camp late last year.

The other soldiers facing courts-martial are Lynndie England, of West Virginia; Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick, of Virginia; Sgt. Javal S. Davis, of Mississippi; and Spc. Meghan M. Ambuhl and Spc. Sabrina Hartman, both of Maryland. Frederick, like Graner, works as a prison guard in civilian life.

Both were named prominently in a 53-page investigative report on the prisoner abuse by Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who found some Iraqi detainees were sadistically treated and humiliated by their American guards.

Graner has been at the forefront of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal since photographs of him surfaced on television last week depicting the soldier posing and smiling as he stood behind naked POWs piled in pyramids.

In an interview earlier this week, Womack said Graner was just following orders and did nothing illegal.

"From all the information I've seen and heard on television, including statements from Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, it's obvious these soldiers were acting on orders from intelligence officers over there. One technique to break down prisoners being interrogated is through psychological manipulation ... by demeaning and degrading them," Womack said.

Murtha said he was told by the soldier who worked in Abu Ghraib that the military intelligence officers were in control, not the military police. Those military police were not trained properly for the mission, he said.

In the federal lawsuit filed in Pittsburgh in 1999, an inmate named Horatio Nimley contended that in June 1998 Graner and other SCI Greene guards were upset about his plans to testify for another inmate during a grievance proceeding.

Nimley said Graner took him to a common room, gave him a tray of food and ordered him to bite into a spoonful of potatoes that he contended contained a razor blade.

Nimley said he cut his mouth and was beaten by Graner and other guards when he refused to give them the razor blade in return for taking him for medical treatment. Nimley sought at least $3.6 million from Graner and five other defendants.

Nimley, now 27, served a 2 1/2-to-5-year sentence for a Montgomery County burglary. According to court records, he never pursued the lawsuit after he returned home to Norristown following his release from prison in June 2000. Judge William L. Standish subsequently dismissed the case when Nimley could not be found to respond to court proceedings.

In another lawsuit, filed in 2000, inmate Osborne Johnson, of Philadelphia, contended Graner used excessive force during a search for drugs. He sought more than $3.9 million in damages against Graner and other 12 defendants.

Johnson claimed in his lawsuit that as he was handcuffed, Graner ordered him to put his face against the cell door and stand on one foot as he was patted down for contraband. Johnson said the cell door began to close during the search and that Graner continued to hold on to Johnson's other foot, causing him "to fall inside his cell face first."

In 2001, Standish dismissed Johnson's lawsuit. According to the state Department of Corrections, Johnson is still an inmate in Greene serving a 17-to-52-year sentence for a robbery in Philadelphia.

Sharon D'Eletto, public information officer at SCI Greene, said she was unaware of the lawsuits.

"We cannot comment on litigation," she said.

Department of Corrections officials in Harrisburg said they are monitoring the pending military charges against Graner and will determine how they will impact his job status once he returns to Pennsylvania.

Graner has worked at the state's maximum security prison since 1996. Previously, the Whitehall, Allegheny County, native had worked six years as a prison guard at the Fayette County Prison.

Efforts to reach his family were unsuccessful yesterday.

Other unsubstantiated allegations of physical abuses made against Graner surfaced earlier this week. In Fayette County, Graner was accused three times between 1997 and 2001 of abusing his former wife, Staci, and their two children, now 11 and 13 years old.

In a 2001 case, Graner's wife claimed he abused her. She claimed Graner yanked her from her daughter's bed by her hair, dragged her into a hallway, and "banged" her head against the floor during an argument. The couple divorced in 2000.

Although protection from abuse orders were issued by judges in those cases, Graner was not convicted of any crimes, nor did he admit to any wrongdoing.

Staff writer Joe Napsha contributed to this story.

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