Former inmate, paralegal file suit

NAMPA (AP) - A former Idaho inmate and his girlfriend have filed a federal lawsuit against the Idaho Department of Correction, seeking $50 million in damages because they claim correction staffers retaliated against them.

According to the Idaho Press-Tribune, a newspaper in Nampa, Renee McKenzie and Lance Wood filed the complaint last month.

The case arose after McKenzie, a paralegal and the former wife of Republican Sen. Curt McKenzie, was appointed by a federal court to help Wood in a separate lawsuit against the state.

After the pair began a romantic relationship, the judge pulled McKenzie from Wood's case. The couple claims correction staffers wrongly harassed them and barred them from meeting because of their efforts in the other lawsuit.

A department spokesman declined to comment.

Wood is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1988 kidnapping and torture slaying of a gay man in Utah. He is currently held in an Oregon prison.