Ex-inmate: Python-handling guards used snake to terrify him


              This Sept. 19, 2014 photo provided by the San Diego County Department of Animal Services shows a boa constrictor that has been seized from a man in San Diego, Calif. Authorities said Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014  that 27-year-old Travis Eisner-Young was arrested while driving his pedicab Sept. 16. When police found him, he had a ball python around his neck. After learning that Eisner-Young had at least one more snake, Animal Services officers went to his hotel room and found a boa constrictor, seen in this photo, in poor condition. (AP Photo/San Diego County Department of Animal Services)
This Sept. 19, 2014 photo provided by the San Diego County Department of Animal Services shows a boa constrictor that has been seized from a man in San Diego, Calif. Authorities said Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 that 27-year-old Travis Eisner-Young was arrested while driving his pedicab Sept. 16. When police found him, he had a ball python around his neck. After learning that Eisner-Young had at least one more snake, Animal Services officers went to his hotel room and found a boa constrictor, seen in this photo, in poor condition. (AP Photo/San Diego County Department of Animal Services)
photo This Sept. 19, 2014 photo provided by the San Diego County Department of Animal Services shows a boa constrictor that has been seized from a man in San Diego, Calif. Authorities said Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014 that 27-year-old Travis Eisner-Young was arrested while driving his pedicab Sept. 16. When police found him, he had a ball python around his neck. After learning that Eisner-Young had at least one more snake, Animal Services officers went to his hotel room and found a boa constrictor, seen in this photo, in poor condition. (AP Photo/San Diego County Department of Animal Services)

OZARK, Ala. -- A former inmate says sheriff's deputies used a python to intimidate and harass prisoners in an Alabama county jail.

In a federal lawsuit filed Monday in Montgomery, Trawick Redding Jr. says he saw two deputies in the jail with a yellow Burmese python around 6 to 7 feet long in the summer of 2013. He says he told the deputies he was afraid of snakes.

Redding says that several hours later, as he was sleeping in his bunk, a deputy entered with a snake. He says in the lawsuit that the deputy brought the snake "within less than an inch of his face and ready to strike."

Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson tells WSFA-TV that two deputies were terminated after he learned of the matter.

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