A state prison inmate who claims his legal papers were taken improperly from him in prison and that he was then retaliated against for filing a grievance, won a $185,000 verdict yesterday in federal court.

Andre Jacobs, who was forced to wear a "stun belt" throughout the trial to make sure he didn't misbehave, represented himself in the trial before U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti.

A jury of eight people deliberated for three days in considering the case. They found in Mr. Jacobs' favor against three people who work or previously worked at State Correctional Institution Pittsburgh: former Capt. Thomas McConnell; Lt. Gregory Giddens, who now works at SCI Mercer; and Carol Scire, who is the superintendent's assistant at Pittsburgh.

The $185,000 in damages is divided among those three employees and is for mental harm, property damage and punitive damages.

Mr. Jacobs included several claims in his lawsuit, which named a total of 14 defendants, including the state Department of Corrections, which was not found liable. He alleged that corrections officers seized 151 pages of his legal documents in September 2003.

Corrections officials said they were taken because at the time, they were in the possession of another inmate. Mr. Jacobs alleged that the documents were taken because they named the corrections employees in a lawsuit he was working on.

He raised claims of interfering with access to the courts, conspiracy to violate his civil rights, retaliation and defamation.

During closing arguments last week, the state's attorney tried to argue that there was no conspiracy among corrections employees.

"If all the defendants were lying, why wouldn't all their stories be the same?" asked attorney Scott A. Bradley, reading quickly from a prepared argument. "Why would there be inconsistencies?"

He defended corrections officers' actions in taking Mr. Jacobs' legal materials because sharing them with another inmate was against corrections policy.

"Their actions were consistent with education and training they received," Mr. Bradley said. "This was contraband, and these officers treated it the way they were trained."

Mr. Bradley then said that Mr. Jacobs was attacking the personal and professional integrity of all of the defendants and that the civil case was "a ploy to relitigate his criminal case."

But Mr. Jacobs, wearing rumpled clothes each day and thick glasses, said that the corrections employees tried to make him look like a liar.

He said there was no policy preventing inmates in his unit from helping one another with legal issues.

He also noted that all he had wanted throughout the civil case was to have his documents returned. That hasn't happened, and the documents no longer exist.

"They're exploiting that fact because they know I can't come in here and show you that evidence," Mr. Jacobs said. "Only way those documents got lost is somebody threw them away."

Throughout the trial, he attempted to expose an environment where corrections officers were allowed to review grievances that were filed against themselves, and a place where other inmates have no voice.

"They don't want to hear nothing a prisoner has to say, no matter what the grievance is," Mr. Jacobs said.

He urged the jurors to speak for him.

"You are the only voice," he said. "You are the only ears for prisoners."

Mr. Jacobs has at least two other civil cases pending in federal court, which are slated to go to trial in coming months.