ALBANY – A state prison inmate a judge says was placed in solitary confinement in an effort to encourage him to snitch on drug-dealing prisoners was unlawfully imprisoned by the state, a Court of Claims judge ruled.

Judge Glen T. Bruening granted $325 to claimant Steven Makas—$25 for each of the 13 days he spent in a special housing unit in 2008 at the maximum-security Eastern Correctional Facility in Napanoch, Ulster County.