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Scott Doll being held at prison in Dutchess County

By Howard B. Owens

Scott F. Doll, 48, convicted by a jury of his peers of murdering his friend, 66-year-old Joseph Benaquist, has been transferred to the maximum security prison in Fishkill, Dutchess County.

The Downstate Correctional Facility, 320 miles from Corfu, is a transfer facility. Doll will likely be held there for a few weeks before being transferred to the prison where he will likely serve out his 15-years-to-life term.

Doll arrived at Downstate on July 7.

Officials told me after Doll's conviction that he would be sent to a prison a good distance from Attica and Wende, two facilities Doll worked at during his nearly 25-year career in corrections.

Prison officials would not want Doll mingling with either former co-workers or the men he guarded, so they would want to get him out of Western New York.

Doll's Department Identification Number is 10B1993.

He is eligible for parole April 17, 2024.

Doll is scheduled to appear in Batavia City Court again on July 27 for a hearing related to a charge of promoting prison contraband. His attorney says he plans to challenge the charge.

Howard B. Owens

Lots of people are interested in what's going on with Scott Doll. Murder cases are pretty rare. Just about anything related to Doll is news.

Also, my standard for "news" is pretty minimal: Is it interesting to me?

If it is of interest to me, then there's a pretty good chance that it will be to other people.

Of course, not everybody, but you can't please all the people all of the time.

One last thought: Any attempt to judge The Batavian by the old standards of news and media will only be met with frustration. "Professional Journalists" have spent the past 50 or so years sending newspapers into the toilet, so that's not an example I care to emulate.

OK, one more thought. It's also important to remember -- on The Batavian just about everything is front page news. We might stick some stuff in Announcements or Sports or Business that doesn't go on the home page, but pretty much everything goes on the home page. So what might be a "brief" buried on A-7 in print is banner headline stuff on our home page, until it scrolls down the page. You notice we don't play the newspaper game of telling you what the big news is. We just put it all on the home page in reverse chronological order and let you decide whether it's worth your time, and you can just scroll down to the next story if it isn't.

Jul 18, 2010, 10:07pm Permalink
Gary Spencer

ok, makes since to me....I was just curious, in my opinion,, he guy was found guilty sent to prison and won't be out for a long time (barring any successful appeals)so as far as I am concerned "good riddens" (that's just me though)

By the way, Howard, I think you do great work, and you take more than your fare share of criticism, I can only imagine. And I know you cannot please everybody, I was just curious, that was all.

Thank you for explaining you position!

Jul 18, 2010, 10:32pm Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Happy to explain, Gary. Thank you for opening the door. I didn't walk right through at first because I wanted to better understand what you're getting at.

There's all kinds of aspects of The Batavian that are deliberately and consciously intended to not be like traditional newspaper journalism, from what is news, to how stories are pursued and written, and our online presentation (which is nothing like any typical newspaper.com)

I know many people don't quite grasp the differences yet -- even while really appreciating what we do -- and of course, some people want to be critical just because we don't fit their outdated ideas of journalism/newspapers/media -- so I'm always happy to explain. Questions are always welcome.

Jul 18, 2010, 10:41pm Permalink
Frank Bartholomew

Howard,
Thanks for this report, I for one, was very curious to know where Mr.Doll was to be housed by the state, given his past employment history.

Jul 19, 2010, 8:33am Permalink

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