Scott interviews reporter Arielle Zionts about her recent story about a pregnant South Dakota woman who died of COVID-19 in federal prison. Andrea Circle Bear, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was charged under an obscure law in connection with a drug sale in which she herself was likely not a primary participant. She was sentenced to two years in a federal prison hundreds of miles from her home. She later contracted COVID-19, and died in April, though not before delivering her baby via C-section. Zionts continues to search for answers about where Circle Bear contracted the illness, and more importantly why a pregnant woman was treated this way in the first place.

Discussed on the show:

“Grandmother says Eagle Butte woman should have never been transferred to prison while pregnant” (Rapid City Journal)

Arielle Zionts is a criminal justice reporter at the Rapid City Journal. Follow her on Twitter @Ajzionts.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

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The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys introducing Arielle Zionts from the Rapid City journal. They're in South Dakota author of this important news story. Grandmother says Eagle Butte woman should have never been transferred to prison while pregnant. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Arielle Zionts 0:59

I'm good. How are you doing?

Scott Horton 1:00

I'm doing great. I really appreciate you joining us here on the show today. So this is the story of is it Andrea or Andrea?

Arielle Zionts 1:11

Andrea but her family she goes by Andy. Andy

Scott Horton 1:14

circle bear. Okay.

Arielle Zionts 1:16

Also her maiden name is Hibear. And that's actually how her how her obituary was written. I see.

Scott Horton 1:23

Okay, and yeah, and then the reason that she's dead is because she got COVID in prison, and what was she doing in prison?

Arielle Zionts 1:33

Sure. And then first to clarify, we actually we do not know where she contracted it. But she began showing symptoms while in prison, and then ended up dying in the hospital but of course, under federal custody, and in terms of use it asked what she was doing in prison. Hmm, okay, sure. She um, she was convicted of, it's a crime that most people probably haven't heard of. which is called like maintaining a Like maintaining a home for drug distribution, but it's it wasn't even her home. If you look at the details what it seems like what was happening is she was maybe just helping someone, basically, maybe sell drugs, but that she probably wasn't the main person because again, she was not charged with dis distributing, and she, it again, it wasn't her home. And then she was sentenced to she lived there. No. So she her grandmother told us that she'd never lived there. She was living with her grandma. And I believe the factual basis says that she didn't live there either.

Scott Horton 2:42

Because it sounds like and I guess I'm speculating a litt...