FRESNO -- One of California?s most dangerous prisons returns
to the spotlight today when three guards and a former medical assistant
appear in court in a civil rights lawsuit accusing them of setting up and
then covering up the rape of an inmate by another inmate known as the "Booty
Bandit."
Eddie Webb Dillard claims the California State Prison, Corcoran, guards
set up his rapes by convicted murderer Wayne Robertson over two days in
March 1993 to punish him for kicking a female guard at another prison.
Robert Decker, Dale Brakebill, Anthony Sylva and Joe Sanchez were acquitted
in 1999 of criminal charges in the same case of aiding and abetting sodomy
in concert. Each had faced up to nine years in prison.
Dillard filed the federal civil rights lawsuit in 1994 against Decker,
Sylva, Sanchez and Kathy Horton-Plant, a prison medical assistant at that
time who has since retired from the California Department of Corrections.
Decker, Sylva and Sanchez remain employed by the CDC.
"One thing that will become clear in this trial is that CDC guards were
purposely using Robertson to dole out gratuitous, extra-judicial, extra-administrative
punishment," said Robert L. Bastian Jr., Dillard?s attorney.
Bastian said witnesses to be called during the trial in federal court
in Fresno include Robertson, who admitted at the criminal trial to raping
and torturing Dillard over several days after guards left him in his cell
in 1993. Robertson testified that the guards intentionally put Dillard
in his cell.
"They knew what would happen to him if they put him in there," Robertson
said at trial.
Former Corcoran prison guard Roscoe "Bonecrusher" Pondexter will also
be called to testify. Pondexter, who testified for the prosecution under
a grant of immunity at the criminal trial, has said his fellow officers
knew they were endangering the 23-year-old Dillard when they left him in
a cell with Robertson, a hulking 6-foot-3, 230-pound convicted murderer
serving a life sentence.
At the time, Dillard weighed a mere 118 pounds and was a known enemy
of Robertson after a run-in with the man guards called "a refrigerator
with legs" at a prison in Tehachapi.
According to affidavits by CDC?s own investigators, Robertson was listed
in prison records as an enemy of Dillard. It is against CDC policy to house
inmates with documented enemies, prison officials acknowledge.
Bastian said CDC records document at least 25 reported instances of
Robertson assaulting or raping cell mates from April 23, 1983, until November
30, 1997, earning him the nickname "Booty Bandit."
In a sworn statement filed in Kings County Superior Court in 2001, where
the criminal case was heard, Barbara Sheldon, a CDC staff attorney, "concluded
that Decker, Sanchez, Sylva and Horton had acted outside the scope of their
employment, acted with actual malice."
Sheldon also noted that the investigation found the guards "may have
been involved in encouraging, promoting or covering up the Dillard rape."
As a result, the CDC withdrew its defense of the guards.
But later, after being notified by the prison guards union that state
law required CDC to provide a defense, the CDC agreed to do so. Gov. Gray
Davis approved the deal last year.
Under state law, the CDC is now responsible for any compensatory damages
awarded to Dillard.
CDC spokesman Russ Heimerich said the agency stands behind its investigators?
conclusions.
"But we are obligated by law to defend them (the guards) given that
they were found innocent in the criminal investigation," Heimerich said.
"I don?t think the (CDC) ever felt the agency was at fault, but the guards
themselves."
Bastian said the CDC?s responsibility should be to settle the case.
And he said Gov. Davis should never have approved the CDC?s deal to defend
the guards, but instead should have ordered the agency to settle the case.
The governor?s office referred questions to Stephen Green, assistant
secretary of the California Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, which
overseas the CDC.
Asked about the CDC?s own investigators? conclusions that the guards
were at fault, Green simply noted their acquittal on criminal charges.
"Those were the investigators? opinions and the court didn?t buy them,"
Green said. "The court did not find the investigators? conclusions were
credible. Given that, the officers are innocent, so we will defend them."
Green said the agency would be willing to settle the case. Bastian said
an offer has never been made.
"We are open to settling this case ? but the attorney has not come to
the table with anything reasonable," Green said, adding that the agency
does not admit guilt.
Trial begins for guards in
California prison rape incident BRIAN SKOLOFF Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif.
- Lawyers delivered opening statements Wednesday in a trial
in which an inmate claims prison guards punished him by setting up his
rape by a convicted murderer who was so notorious for abuse that he was
known as the "Booty Bandit."
Eddie Webb Dillard claims three guards violated his civil rights by
setting up the rapes over two days in March 1993 to punish him for kicking
a guard at another prison. Dillard alleges the guards - Robert Decker,
Joe Sanchez and Anthony Sylva - and now-retired prison medical assistant
Kathy Horton-Plant then orchestrated a cover-up by refusing to take him
to a hospital and by not filing internal medical reports.
"As a result, Mr. Dillard never received medical care," Marina Dini,
Dillard's attorney, said in the courtroom Wednesday. "There is nothing
in the file to document even an allegation ... The evidence will show this
was merely swept under the rug."
Jan Kahn, the attorney representing Sanchez, said Sanchez shouldn't
be held responsible because he wasn't on duty the day Dillard was transferred
into Robertson's cell. Kahn said Dillard never told Sanchez he was in any
danger sharing a cell with Robertson and depicted the two inmates as being
on friendly terms.
"They even braided one another's hair," Kahn said Wednesday.
Scheduled witnesses at the federal trial include Wayne Robertson, who
has acknowledged raping and torturing Eddie Webb Dillard and said the guards
intentionally put Dillard in his cell.
"They knew what would happen to him," Robertson said at a 1999 criminal
trial in which the guards at California State Prison, Corcoran were acquitted.
The inmate's attorney declined to say how much Dillard is seeking, but
a state official said Dillard was seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The California Department of Corrections, which would be responsible
for any compensatory damages awarded to Dillard, contends it is the guards
and not the agency that were at fault, department spokesman Russ Heimerich
said.
Department of Corrections attorney Barbara Sheldon concluded in a 2001
affidavit that the defendants "had acted ... with actual malice." Investigators
also said in affidavits that Robertson was listed in prison records as
an enemy of Dillard. It is against department policy to house inmates with
documented enemies.
Witnesses include former guard Roscoe "Bonecrusher" Pondexter, who testified
at the criminal trial under a grant of immunity. He has said his fellow
officers knew they were endangering Dillard when they left him in a cell
with 6-3, 230-pound Robertson, who is serving a life sentence for murder
and weighed nearly twice as much as Dillard did at the time.
Dillard's attorney, Robert L. Bastian, Jr., said department records
document at least 25 instances in which Robertson assaulted or raped cellmates
between April 1983 and November 1997, earning him the "Booty Bandit" nickname.
Dillard, who had been in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, was
released in 1996 and sent back to prison in 2003 for another assault with
a deadly weapon charge.
The Department of Corrections withdrew its defense of the guards but
later agreed to pay for their attorneys in the civil case after the prison
guards union argued that refusing to do so violated state law.
Witness
changes testimony Convicted
killer denies rape of Corcoran inmate. By Jerry
Bier
The Fresno
Bee
(Published
Saturday, September 27, 2003, 5:29 AM)
Convicted
murderer Wayne Robertson, the so-called "Booty Bandit" who said he raped
inmate Eddie Webb Dillard because Corcoran State Prison guards wanted to
teach Dillard a lesson, stunned a federal courtroom Thursday by testifying
he and Dillard made the whole thing up.
Robertson, after hours of testimony and denial that he even knew or
remembered Dillard, said he never raped him and that the two of them had
come up with a scheme to say Dillard had been sexually assaulted.
Four years ago, in a criminal prosecution of correctional officers,
Robertson testified that he beat and repeatedly sodomized Dillard when
the two men were placed together in a cell at Corcoran's security housing
unit, or SHU, for three days in March 1993.
It was not true, Robertson said from the witness stand Thursday in Dillard's
federal civil lawsuit against the guards.
"Mr. Dillard asked me to help him and I said 'yes,' but at no time did
I think he would take it to this extreme," the shackled, 6-foot-3, 220-pound
Robertson said. Three black-vested state guards stood within feet of him.
Dillard filed a federal civil rights complaint against guards Robert
Allan Decker, Joe Sanchez and Anthony Sylva, accusing them of putting him
into Robertson's cell for three days to punish him because he had kicked
a female guard at another state prison.
He also named former medical assistant Kathy Horton-Plant, contending
she orchestrated a cover-up by refusing to have him taken to a hospital
after the alleged attacks by Robertson.
Under questioning by Dillard's lawyer, Robert L. Bastian, Robertson
was evasive and couldn't remember any details, frequently saying he did
not recall Dillard and asking to see him or a photo to try to recall him.
Dillard had asked not to be present when Robertson was on the witness
stand and was not in the courtroom for any of his testimony.
"Name sounds familiar," said Robertson.
Robertson, referred to in prison slang as the "Booty Bandit" for his
sexual assaults on inmates, was asked if he was angry about having to testify.
"Oh, yeah," he answered.
Most of Robertson's testimony Thursday was in stark contrast to that
of the man who testified four years ago that he had sodomized Dillard over
two days after Decker had told him that Dillard, who weighed 118 pounds,
"needs to learn to do his time."
The guards were acquitted of any wrongdoing in the criminal trial after
being prosecuted by the state Attorney General's Office on charges of setting
up Dillard's rape.
Robertson, bald except for a thin braided ponytail, wore a bright white
prison jumpsuit and carried an envelope that he said contained his prison
files.
He spent much of the time denying information about his violent prison
past, contained in California Department of Corrections files, while being
questioned by Bastian.
Robertson, serving a life term without parole for a point-blank killing
during a robbery 24 years ago, said he didn't recall ever saying he raped
Dillard.
When Bastian read statements from his testimony in the criminal trial
and asked if that refreshed his recollection, Robertson responded, "No."
Then, while being questioned by attorney Mark H. Harris, who represents
Sylva and Horton-Plant, Robertson was asked about a letter he reportedly
wrote to Dillard Oct. 26, 1999, about a week after his criminal trial testimony.
The letter said in part: "You must take responsibility of your own actions.
You're about to get 'paid,' but if the truth really comes out I don't think
you would get one red cent."
While Robertson evaded most of the questions asked by Bastian, he readily
answered questions about "Little E," identified as Dillard, when questioned
by attorneys representing the correctional officers.
He was under no pressure to talk about the alleged scheme with Dillard,
Robertson said, and he was not working for the California Department of
Corrections.
"I don't give a [expletive] about these officers," he testified, asking
everyone to pardon his language.
He said that at the time he and Dillard, whose case was one of those
highlighted in the national media spotlight when Corcoran gained a reputation
as the nation's most violent prison, were both angry at Decker, who was
one of the sergeants in the SHU.
He said he told Dillard, "You help me and I'll help you."
But Dillard went to the extreme, Robertson said, going on the news show
"60 Minutes" while he remained "locked up" in the SHU, described as a prison
within a prison, "because of these unproven allegations."
Robertson has a history of violence and prison rapes dating to 1983,
according to prison records.
Bastian said after jurors had left that Robertson's testimony was "absurd
. . . he has never disclosed this scheme whatsoever."
The reporter can be reached at jbier@fresnobee.com or 441-6484.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ex-Corcoran
inmate testifies to attack in cell
By Jerry Bier
The Fresno Bee
Published 10/01/03 12:29:00
A former Corcoran State Prison inmate who fought off an
attack by sexual predator Wayne Robertson testified Tuesday that he protested
being placed in the cell with Robertson, but never told correctional officers
the reason why.
"That's snitching. ... it's not my position to say, especially
to a correctional officer," said inmate Lawrence Johnson, who is serving
a "Three Strikes" sentence of 31 years to life for attempted rape.
Johnson said inmates were well aware of Robertson's reputation
as a prison rapist and predator and that is the reason he protested to
Sgt. Robert Allan Decker before being placed into a cell with him at Corcoran
in 1993.
Decker, along with guards Joe Sanchez and Anthony Sylva,
are accused of deliberately placing inmate Eddie Webb Dillard into a cell
with Robertson to punish him because he had kicked a female guard at another
state prison.
Dillard's civil trial against the guards and former medical
assistant Kathy Horton-Plant resumed Tuesday with the testimony of Johnson
and another inmate, Oliver Coleman, serving seven years to life for kidnapping
and robbery.
Johnson, answering questions from Dillard's lawyer, Marina
R. Dini, said he protested to Decker that he and Robertson weren't compatible
when he was ordered moved into Robertson's cell in the secured housing
unit.
"I knew his history, his M.O.," Johnson said.
Decker did not heed his protests, Johnson said, and he
went to Robertson's cell and was told by the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Robertson
that "if I come in there, I come in at my own risk."
Lawyers for the officers objected to the testimony about
Robertson's warning, and U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii ordered the
jury to disregard the statement.
The judge also prevented testimony from Coleman that he
didn't tell guards about Robertson's reputation because that would label
him a "snitch," and in a prison, a snitch could wind up injured or dead.
Robertson did attack him, but he was able to fight him
off and suffered a "busted lip and black eye." He never told officers about
the fight, he said, and was transferred out of Robertson's cell a couple
of days later.
Robertson, who admitted he raped Dillard when he testified
at the guards' criminal trial four years ago, last week testified in the
civil trial that the alleged rape was a scheme that he and Dillard made
up. The guards were acquitted in the criminal trial.
Coleman testified that he saw Dillard run from Robertson's
cell after the alleged rape.
"All I know is the man came out of the cell hollering
he was raped," Coleman said.
He said he later was placed into a cell with Robertson
and asked him "what happened to the little youngster?" Dillard was 5-foot-7,
118 pounds.
Robertson responded something to the effect that "one
thing led to another," Coleman testified.
Asked by lawyer Katherine L. Hart, representing Decker,
whether he had any problems with Robertson, Coleman replied, "not at all."
In testimony later Tuesday, Decker said that when he answered
questions in the civil case in 1995 and stated he knew Dillard had been
sexually assaulted by Robertson in March 1993, he actually was thinking
of an alleged assault of another inmate that took place three months later.
Decker underwent intense questioning by another Dillard
lawyer, Robert L. Bastian, about cell transfers he had ordered in the secured
housing unit and whether he should have known that Dillard had placed Robertson
on his "enemies list," meaning he did not want to be in a cell with him.
Been keeping a watch on this one through Prisoners of
Davis...just DISTURBING. The whole thing just gets me sick.
PRISON DISCIPLINE
By Mark Arax and
Mark Gladstone
TIMES STAFF WRITERS
FRESNO-Five state correctional officers (prison guards) have been indicted
by a special Kings County Grand Jury on conspiracy and other charges stemming
from a 1993 rape at Corcoran State Prison by an inmate nicknamed the "Booty
Bandit." The five officers, including a lieutenant, were booked at the
Kings County Jail Thursday (Oct. 8, 1998) afternoon on a variety of criminal
charges, including conspiracy to carry out a sodomy and preparing false
reports. The indictments came after a three-month investigation by the
state attorney general's office into allegations of planned rapes and cover-ups
at the prison between Bakersfield and Fresno.
The Kings County Sheriff's Department identified the five men as Lt.
Jeffrey A. Jones, 36; Sgt. Robert Allan Decker, 40; Sgt. Dale S. Brakebill,
33; and Officers Anthony J. Sylva, 35, and Joe Sanchez, 37. The March 1993
rape of inmate Eddie Dillard, a 23-year-old Los Angeles gang member imprisoned
for assault with a deadly weapon, had been investigated last year by a
state Corrections Department team and the Kings County district attorney's
office. Convicted murderer Wayne Robertson had told state investigators
that he raped Dillard at the behest of prison staff, in part because Dillard
had kicked a female guard at another prison. But because the initial investigation
couldn't break what authorities have described as Corcoran's code of silence
- no officers would come forward with information about the alleged crime
- the matter was dropped. The attorney general's office, which had been
told about the case last year by Kings County authorities, decided not
to investigate.
Then this July, a story in The LA Times focused on one former guard
who gave the newspaper a first-hand account of the rape. Roscoe Pondexter
described how fellow officers had transferred Dillard into Robertson's
cell, knowing that the 6-foot3, 230-pound prison enforcer would probably
rape the small, slender Dillard. In August, after striking an immunity
deal with Pondexter, the attorney general's office convened a special grand
jury in Kings County and subpoenaed Pondexter, Dillard, Robertson and several
officers. There was concern at the attorney general's office that the regular
Kings County Grand Jury, known for its conservative, pro-law enforcement
bent, would not return an indictment against Corcoran officers, many of
whom live in the community. Indeed, last year, that grand jury refused
to indict officers in another Corcoran case in which a busload of black
inmates were allegedly beaten during a transfer to Corcoran.
"We decided not to file the [Dillard] case because… we didn't have any
officers willing to cooperate with us," said Assistant Dist. Atty. Larry
Crouch. "Since then, a correctional officer has come forward and spoken
to [The LA Times] and testified before the grand jury, and that has altered
the case. We didn't have Pondexter at the time. We didn't have that one
thing that we needed." According to the accounts of Pondexter and Dillard
and the statements Robertson made to state investigators, it was Sgt. Decker
who gave the order that Dillard should be moved into Robertson's cell on
the day of the rape.
THE BOOTY BANDIT
Robertson wasn't shy about being called the Booty Bandit. He told corrections
investigators that any time Corcoran supervisors needed an inmate to be
"checked," they could call on him. Depending on his mood, he said, he would
either rape or beat them. A dozen such assaults and rapes were documented
in his prison file. He said he got extra food and tennis shoes in return.
Dillard told The Times that he had been at Corcoran about a week when he
was told: "Roll up your crap, you're moving." Officer Sylva and another
guard escorted him from one section of the security housing unit to another,
he said. Along the way, they informed him that his new cellmate would be
Robertson. "I told them, 'You can't put me in there. This guy's my enemy.
He's a sexual predator.'" Dillard said Sylva responded, "It's happening.
Since you like hitting women, we've got somebody for you."
A few years earlier, at another prison, Dillard had spurned Robertson's
sexual advances, and this led to a fight, Dillard said. He so feared Robertson
that he listed him as an enemy in his personal file. Under prison policy,
this alone should have precluded any move into Robertson's cell. Pondexter
said in an interview that he didn't know at the time of the cell move that
Dillard had kicked a female officer. "I didn't know what wrong Dillard
had done, but my superiors obviously wanted him punished," he said. "Everyone
knew about Robertson. He had raped inmates before, and he's raped inmates
since."
Dillard said that on the way to Robertson's cell, he lodged more protests
but that none of the officers would listen. As soon as the door clanged
shut, he said, Robertson began to lecture him. Dillard was there because
Decker thought he needed to be "taught a lesson on how to do your time,"
Robertson told him, according to internal prison reports. "You know better
than to be kicking a female officer," Robertson reportedly said. The lights
went out and Robertson grabbed at the 120-pound Dillard, who said that
he tried to fight back but that Robertson was too powerful. Dillard said
he pounded on the cell door to let guards know he was in trouble, but that
no one came as he was repeatedly raped.
Dillard later gave his account of the attack to an officer who hand-carried
a report of the rape to then-Sgt. Jones, according to internal reports.
Jones reportedly told the officer, "What do you want me to do with this?
Nobody wants to do anything about it." In a July interview, Dillard said:
"They took something from me that I can never replace. I've tried so many
nights to forget about it, but the feeling just doesn't go away. Every
time I'm with my wife, it comes back what he did to me. I want a close
to the story. I want some salvation. But it keeps going on and on."
On Thursday, Decker was arrested on four criminal counts, including
conspiracy to rape and preparing false evidence. Sylva and Brakebill were
charged with two counts, including conspiracy. Sanchez was charged with
three counts, including conspiracy, and Jones was charged with being an
accessory after the fact. Dillard declined to comment Thursday. Pondexter
said the indictments were "welcome but difficult news." "After examining
my heart, I felt it was the right thing to do - to come forward and talk
about what happened to Dillard that day, to let the public know," he said.
"It's never easy to break the code of silence. It took me five years. There
are no winners on either side. A lot of good officers are going to be strained
by this."
State Department of Corrections chief Cal Terhune, who assumed his job
in mid-1997, said October 8th, that the allegations were troubling.
"If it did happen, it's the worst fear that anyone could have going into
a prison. We have a moral and legal responsibility to respond to it," Terhune
said. James Maddock, special agent in charge of the Sacramento office of
the FBI, applauded the indictments. FBI agents have conducted a four-year
investigation into the 1994 shooting death of inmate Preston Tate at Corcoran.
That probe has resulted in the federal indictments of eight Corcoran officers
for allegedly setting up inmate fights for blood sport. A trial is pending.
(The ancient Romans and their bloody "games" have nothing on the Corrections
Department! WFI Editor) "The state's investigation is a recognition
of the fact that there were serious civil rights abuses occurring at Corcoran,"
Maddock said.
After being booked, the suspects were released on their own recognizance
pending arraignment. The grand jury, which questioned 40 witnesses, will
continue its investigation, trying to determine if the conspiracy went
deeper. Robertson, who is already serving a life term, wasn't indicted.
In addition to the charges involving the rape of Dillard, the grand jury
also indicted Sgt. Decker on a charge of conspiring with Robertson to rape
inmate Melvin Davis in June 1993. "During our investigation of [the Dillard
case] we discovered evidence of an additional and similar situation," said
Rob Stutzman, spokesman for the attorney general's office in Sacramento.
SOURCE: Excerpted from the 9 October, 1998, issue of the Los Angeles Times,
Orange County Edition, from an article entitled, "5 Charged in Corcoran
Prison Rape." Reprinted in the public service of the national interest
of the American people.
(WFI EDITOR: Even that notorious totalitarian, the late LA County
Sheriff Sherman Block, declared that criminals were incarcerated AS PUNISHMENT,
not for punishment. This was in relation to a similar scandal, when it
was discovered that a group of LA County Deputy Sheriffs had formed an
illegal vigilante group called, "the posse," which regularly beat up inmates
that members of the group felt were uncooperative. It never dawns on the
police that there is still popular resistance to the police state, and
even though most of the inmates are illiterate, and many actually do need
to be incarcerated for public safety, the causal factors that result in
incarceration rates for minorities that exceeds the majority white population's
rate of incarceration, all suggest that there is a class-based engine driving
law enforcement under George Washington's republic.)
-Judge refuses to drop woman from
prison trial By Jerry Bier
The Fresno Bee
Published
10/11/03 05:35:25
A federal judge said Friday that if he were on the jury
in Eddie Webb Dillard's trial over allegations of rape in Corcoran State
Prison, he would find in favor of one of the defendants.
However, U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii wouldn't drop Kathy Horton-Plant
as a defendant in the case after a lawyer argued that there was a lack
of evidence against her.
Horton-Plant was a medical technical assistant who visually examined
Dillard on March 8, 1993, after he fled the cell of Wayne Robertson, a
6-foot-2, 220-pound sexual predator known in prison as the "Booty Bandit."
She and three Corcoran corrections officers are on trial in federal
court in Fresno over allegations by Dillard that he was deliberately placed
into the cell of Robertson as punishment for assaulting a female guard
at another prison.
Horton-Plant, who now lives in Texas, testified during the trial that
after she examined Dillard, she received an order from a prison doctor
to have him taken to a hospital for a rape examination.
The transportation order was mysteriously canceled, according to testimony,
and Dillard was moved to another cell without any further medical treatment.
Another witness, former corrections officer Michael Coziahr, also testified
that Horton-Plant, who is accused of participating in a cover-up, was sympathetic
to Dillard's alleged attack and angrily admonished other officers who laughed
at an off-color joke about the alleged rape.
Mark H. Harris, a lawyer representing Horton-Plant, asked Ishii to drop
her from the case before it is turned over to the four-woman, four-man
civil jury.
While it appears "some balls were dropped" in the Dillard case, Harris
said, "I don't believe my client dropped any balls or was deliberately
indifferent to Eddie Webb Dillard."
However, Robert L. Bastian, one of Dillard's lawyers, urged the judge
to deny the motion to dismiss Horton-Plant as a defendant and let the jury
decide.
If it is true she was "heroically trying to get medical care" for Dillard,
Bastian said, she should have known and written in reports who is responsible
for blocking that care.
Ishii said the evidence against Horton-Plant is circumstantial and if
he were on the jury, he would find in her favor, but the jury has to reach
its own conclusion.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages from Horton-Plant,
Sgt. Robert Allan Decker and officers Joe Sanchez and Anthony Sylva, whose
defense is being paid for by the state.
In testimony Friday, Elizabeth J. Harris, a clinical psychologist from
Encino, said she treated Dillard in 2001 for post-traumatic stress disorder
relating to the alleged multiple rapes by Robertson.
Harris, no relation to lawyer Harris, said Dillard exhibited all of
the classic symptoms of the disorder, caused when one witnesses or is subjected
to an event that causes fear of death or great injury.
"He came basically wanting relief from the symptoms he was experiencing,"
Harris said, noting Dillard's problems included nightmares, pervasive fear,
irritability and psychological distress.
After nine sessions, Dillard appeared much better and did not return,
Harris said.
Dillard, 33, was first convicted of three felonies in 1990 and served
six years of a 10-year sentence. He went back into prison this year after
committing other felonies and is serving a term of nine to 11 years.
The trial concluded its third week Friday and will resume Wednesday.
Closing arguments in "booty
bandit" prison rape case BRIAN SKOLOFF Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif.
- A lawyer for a state prison inmate who claims guards
set him up to be raped by another inmate known as the "Booty Bandit" asked
jurors Friday to award the plaintiff the same amount of money they would
give to a free man.
"He is entitled to the benefit of federal law and justice," said Robert
L. Bastian, Jr., in his closing argument after four weeks of testimony.
Eddie Webb Dillard claims the guards at California State Prison, Corcoran
set up his rapes by convicted murderer Wayne Robertson over two days in
March 1993 to punish him for kicking a female guard at another prison.
Dillard is serving time for assault with a deadly weapon.
Robert Decker, Dale Brakebill, Anthony Sylva and Joe Sanchez were acquitted
in 1999 of criminal charges in the same case. Each had faced up to nine
years in prison.
Dillard filed the federal civil rights lawsuit in 1994 against Decker,
Sylva, Sanchez and Kathy Horton-Plant, a prison medical assistant at that
time who has since retired from the California Department of Corrections.
Decker, Sylva and Sanchez remain employed by the CDC.
The guards' attorneys have claimed their clients did not act with intent
to harm Dillard, and, in fact, were not responsible for Dillard's move
into Robertson's cell.
Dillard's attorneys claim the guards ignored the fact that prison records
indicated he was a known enemy of Robertson's. It is against prison policy
to house inmate enemies together.
Dillard's attorneys claim Horton-Plant orchestrated a cover-up of the
rapes by not filing the proper medical reports and not following through
with an order to have Dillard transferred to a hospital for a full rape
examination.
Former guards testified that the defendants knew Robertson was a sexual
predator and would harm Dillard.
Bastian said CDC records document at least 25 reported instances of
Robertson assaulting or raping cellmates from April 23, 1983, until November
30, 1997, earning him the nickname "Booty Bandit."
Robertson himself testified at the earlier criminal trial that he raped
Dillard and that the guards "knew what would happen to him if they put
him in" his cell.
But during the civil case, Robertson changed his story, claiming he
never raped Dillard and that the two concocted the tale in hopes of winning
money at a trial.
Bastian said Friday that Robertson changed his story because the attorney
refused to offer him an incentive for testifying.
"Robertson sent me a letter, asking 'What's in it for me?'" Bastian
told jurors.
Bastian has not said how much money his client should get, but CDC officials
said Dillard wanted millions. The CDC would be responsible for any compensatory
damages awarded to Dillard.
Prison officials refused to settle the civil case even though their
own investigators found the guards liable in the criminal case.
Jan Kahn, the attorney representing Sanchez, said Sanchez shouldn't
be held responsible because he wasn't on duty the day Dillard was transferred
into Robertson's cell. Kahn said Dillard never told Sanchez he was in any
danger sharing a cell with Robertson and depicted the two inmates as being
on friendly terms.
Mark Harris, the attorney representing Horton-Plant and Silva, attempted
to depict Dillard as a career criminal whose credibility can't be trusted.
"This case is all about evidence and credibility," Harris told jurors.
Harris said Horton-Plant examined Dillard after the alleged rape and
contacted her supervisors, who ordered Dillard transferred to a hospital
for further exams.
The fact that Dillard was never transferred was not Horton-Plant's fault,
Harris said. He blamed the oversight on other prison employees.
"This is not a cover-up," he said. "The ball was dropped that night,
but who dropped it? It certainly wasn't Kathy Horton-Plant, Anthony Silva,
Robert Decker or Joe Sanchez."
Harris said the decision to transfer Dillard into Robertson's cell came
from higher authorities in the prison system, not from any of the defendants.
Closing arguments were expected to last throughout the day Friday. The
jury would either get the case Friday evening or Tuesday, when court is
back in session.
-------------------------------------Jury
Finds Rape Not Prison Workers' Fault
Wednesday October
22, 2003 3:46 AM
By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press
Writer
FRESNO, Calif. (AP)
- Four employees of a California state prison were not responsible for
the rape of an inmate by a fellow prisoner, a jury found Tuesday.
Eddie W. Dillard
claimed during the federal civil rights trial that the employees at the
prison in Corcoran arranged and then covered up his rapes by a convicted
murderer notorious for sexual assaults on inmates.
Dillard contended
the rapes, over two days in March 1993, were arranged to punish him for
kicking a female guard at another prison. Dillard is serving time for assault
with a deadly weapon.
Dillard filed suit
in 1994 against Robert Decker, Anthony Sylva, Joe Sanchez and Kathy Horton-Plant.
Decker, Sylva and Sanchez remain employed by the California Department
of Corrections. Horton-Plant has since retired.
Sanchez said he was
ready to get back to work: ``I'm just glad it's over and I can get on with
my career.''
Dillard's attorney,
Robert L. Bastian, Jr., said he was considering seeking a new trial.
The defendants' attorneys
told jurors their clients had no knowledge of Wayne Robertson's sexually
violent behavior and were not responsible for Dillard's transfer into Robertson's
cell.
Bastian called their
claims ``denial, upon denial, upon denial,'' and pointed to a culture of
apathy and neglect in the state prison system.
Juror Grace Alcaraz
said she wanted to decide for Dillard but the evidence did not prove intent
by the guards.
``My heart goes out
to Dillard,'' Alcaraz said. ``The system failed Dillard and they (the guards)
are the system.''
Decker, Sylva and
Sanchez were acquitted in 1999 of criminal charges in the same case.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lawyers file for new trial in prison rape case
Wednesday November 05, 2003
By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) Attorneys for an inmate who claimed
in a civil suit that four prison employees arranged his rape by another
inmate have filed a motion for a new trial after the employees' acquittal
last month.
Eddie Webb Dillard claimed the guards and a medical technician at California
State Prison, Corcoran set up and then covered up his rapes by convicted
murderer Wayne Robertson, a man so notorious for his sexual assaults on
fellow inmates that he's known as the ``Booty Bandit.''
In October, jurors found that guards Robert Decker, Anthony Sylva, Joe
Sanchez and medical technician Kathy Horton-Plant were not responsible
for the attacks. Decker, Sylva and Sanchez were acquitted in 1999 of criminal
charges in the same case.
The attacks are alleged to have occurred over two days in March 1993.
Dillard is serving time for assault with a deadly weapon.
Dillard's attorney, Robert L. Bastian, Jr., said Wednesday that U.S.
District Court Judge Anthony Ishii would hear arguments for a new trial
Dec. 1 in Fresno.
Bastian said the jury should not have heard details of Dillard's criminal
conviction during the four-week long civil rights trial.
``The nature of his conviction had little bearing on the facts in this
case,'' Bastian said. ``This was a miscarriage of justice.''
The motion for a new trial filed last week does not include Horton-Plant
as a defendant. Bastian said ``the judge made it clear'' the evidence did
not support Horton-Plant's inclusion in the case.
Attorney Mark Harris, who represents Silva and Horton-Plant, said the
motion for a new trial has no merit.
``I'm confident the jury's verdict was carefully deliberated and was
without error,'' Harris said.
Decker's attorney, Katherine Hart, said she would expect nothing less
than a motion for a new trial from Dillard's attorneys.
``These two attorneys for the plaintiff are excellent, ambitious, hard-working
attorneys ... They passionately believe in their case and they are trying
to do the best job for their client,'' Hart said. ``But I am confident
the jury reached the right result.''
Sanchez's attorney, Jan Kahn, did not immediately return telephone calls.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Past Dillard Trial Articles 1998 - 2002----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Date:
May 17, 2002
Summary: Recently, a small Los Angeles-based advocacy group, Stop Prisoner
Rape, squared off against advertising giant Young & Rubican, and its
client, 7 Up, the large soft drink company, owned by Britain's Cadbury
Schweepes. At issue is the propriety of a television commercial making
light of prison rape. Stop Prisoner Rape is right, 7 Up is wrong,
as explained in this op-ed piece by Robert Bastian, an attorney who represents
prison rape victim Eddie Webb Dillard in his lawsuit against the California
Department of Corrections.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyone doubting prison rape is widely tolerated is invited to
review evidence in the Human Rights Watch Report, No Escape: Male Rape
in U.S. Prisons, released last year. For example, Eddie Dillard,
whose civil rights lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court, Fresno, is
the victim of a recidivist inmate rapist whom California Department of
Corrections authorities continued to assign new cellmates, notwithstanding
over 25 documented instances of rape or sexual assault on cellmates at
six separate California prisons.
Stop Prisoner Rape is a small Los
Angeles-based advocacy group devoted to addressing this problem.
Recently, Stop Prisoner Rape squared off against advertising giant Young
& Rubican, Inc., and its client, 7 Up. At issue is a television
advertising campaign directed primarily at 12-24 year olds. In one ad,
comedian Godfrey, poses as a company spokesman handing out 7 Up in a prison.
After dropping a can, he states, "I'm not picking that up." Later, he sits
uncomfortably in a cell as a bearded inmate wraps a tattooed arm around
him. "When you bring the 7 Up everyone is your friend," the spokesman says.
As the cell door slams, he adds, "Okay, that's enough being friends."
7 Up's spokesman says the company's sole aim was
to create a humorous commercial, not offend anyone. According to
7 Up, test screenings showed the average person enjoyed the ad, but did
not take the rape references seriously. He concludes, "We understand
this is a serious issue" but "we believe the appropriate people to address
it are [those] in the criminal justice and corrections systems."
Thus, 7 Up has no plans to, as they say, kill the spot.
7 Up is wrong.
Elizabeth Noelle-Neuman, a noted
social scientist who, in 1947, founded the prestigious German polling organization,
the Allensbach Institute, has spent a lifetime studying and explaining
how public opinion is formed. In her seminal work, The Spiral of Silence
(1984), she elegantly demonstrates how opinions people openly share are
powerfully conditioned by innate desires to socially fit in; how, at the
deepest levels, opinions people publicly share are shaped by fear of social
isolation. Consequently, people generally express opinions that fall
within a range they perceive to be socially acceptable.
Implicit in her work is a search
for, and explanation how, in a modern, highly educated democracy, officially
tolerated human rights abuse and widespread depravity can, nonetheless,
occur. Her work suggests there is social danger when outrage, even one
cloaked in humor, is met with approval or -- what is sometimes worse --
an aura of approval in the form of silence.
Yet, when the consequences of silence in the face
of outrage are, through experience and education, widely understood, outrageous
ideas are met with appropriate disapproval. For an extreme example:
if, instead, the commercial made light of the actor not following the soda
can into a boxcar occupied by terrified internees, the effort would be
commonly adjudged not only insensitive, but malevolent. Likewise,
a commercial making light of an intimidating man implicitly threatening
to sexually assault a woman should she bend over to retrieve a soda is
entirely intolerable. Regrettably, though, there have been times
and places where, if audience screening was the sole determinative factor,
such ill-conceived advertising concepts might have passed muster.
What's left, now, is a climate
in which, while it is unacceptable to trivialize rape, it is acceptable
to trivialize rape behind bars. Not surprisingly, it has also become,
in practice, penologically acceptable. When Dillard escaped from
a Corcoran prison cell where he was violated for three days by a sociopath
twice his size, correctional officers joked that he got his doughnut glazed.
Now, guards operating at this level of moral awareness might offer the
victim 7 Up.
While 7 Up would deny being morally
implicated in a climate that enables prison rape, it nonetheless spends
advertising dollars on the assumption that sharing with 12-24 year olds
a chuckle -- that hapless fellows, such as the diminutive Godfrey, are
likely to be raped if isolated in prison -- sells sodas. If 7 Up is correct
that such shared drollery has measurable influence over young peoples'
beverage preferences, it stands to reason it has at least that much influence
over their attitudes towards prison rape. Stop Prisoner Rape rightly
fears 7 Up is laying groundwork for another generation of silence in the
face of outrage.
In 1910, Winston Churchill asserted,
"treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of
the civilization of any country." In a 2001, 7 Up introduced its ad campaign,
featuring, in the company's words, "comedian Godfrey as the brand's new
clueless marketing executive . . .[i]n keeping with the campaign's overall
theme . . . coming up with exciting and innovative concepts for marketing
7 Up, which ultimately go awry."
Stop Prisoner Rape's point, exactly
By: Robert L. Bastian, Jr.
Attorney at the Law Offices of Bastian & Dini (Los Angeles)
which represents Eddie Webb Dillard
References:
Joanne Mariner, "No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons,"
Human Rights Watch 2001.
Elizabeth Noelle-Neuman, "The Spiral of Silence",
University of Chicago Press (1984).
Frank Arens, Cracking the Code of Advertising,
Washington Post, 3-3-02.
Barry Shlachter, Inmate advocates chide 7 UP,
Star-Telegram, 4-30-02.
Tamar Lewin, Little Sympathy or Remedy for Inmates who are Raped
New York Times, 4-15-01.
The Dillard case is also discussed in multiple LA Times articles by
Mark Arax. (Indeed, his fine work has resulted in Eddie Dillard having
a fighting chance in his civil lawsuit.)
The factual assertions in the second sentence are supported by a Declaration
and accompanying exhibits filed in Dillard v. Decker, et
al. U.S.D.C. Case No. CV F-94 5048 AWI SMS. A copy of the declaration
is attached as an Appendix to the Human Rights Watch Report referenced
above. A similar declaration is on file in the related case of Decker,
et al. v. C.D.C., King County Superior Ct. No. 00C2852
7 Up Press releases (found at 222.dpsu.com):
1-4-02, 7 UP `Exposes' Itself to Consumers Through Integrated
Advertising and Point-of-Sale marketing Campaign.
10-31-01, 7 UP Introduces New Spokesman as Part of
its 2002 `Make 7 UP Yours' Advertising Campaign.
Robert L. Bastian, Jr., can be reached at:
o: 310-789-1955
f: 310-822-1989
e: robbastian@aol.com
a: Law Offices of Bastian & Dini
1925 Century Park East, Suite 500
Los Angeles, CA 90067-2700
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Now: What Has 2 Million Victims, Turns Passive Men Violent,
Spreads HIV and Could Be Stopped Overnight? If You Said 'Prison Rape,'
You're in on the Joke.
Bill Handel is a drive-time radio host on L.A.'s KFI-AM (640). He stays
popular because he has a feel for what makes his audience chuckle as they
head for that unfunny 9 a.m. encounter with the boss. His repertoire includes
prison rape jokes, the tired but reliable picking-up-soap-in-the-shower
ones, especially when the hapless subject is a celebrated or heinous convict.
"When people hear about a victim" of prison rape, Handel explains, the
response is: "So he should have stayed out of jail!"
Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, the chief law enforcement official of California,
told the Wall Street Journal last year that Enron CEO Kenneth Lay deserved
to be jailed with a cellmate who would say to him, "Hi. My name is Spike,
honey."
Everyone, it seems, is in on prison rape jokes. Don't worry about crossing
a line because when the subject is inmates raping other inmates, people
don't empathize. They laugh.
So have you heard this one? The FBI says that 89,107 women reported
rapes in the U.S. in 1999. Prison experts say that at least twice that
number of men are raped each year in prison. "Prison rape is the most tolerated
act of terrorism in the U.S.," says James E. Robertson, a professor of
corrections at Minnesota State University, Mankato, who has studied the
problem for 15 years.
Precise numbers of these rapes are not available. Neither the federal
government nor the state of California keep statistics on the crime. But
this much is known: Just as heterosexual rapes across the U.S. are often
not reported, sexual abuse in prison is "massively underreported," says
Terry Kupers of Oakland, a psychiatrist who has written and edited books
on prison conditions. Kupers believes that more than one-third of all incoming
inmates in American jails and prisons are either sexually assaulted or
are in imminent danger of attack.
Cindy Struckman-Johnson, a psychology professor at the University of
South Dakota, says that studies she has conducted suggest that at least
22% of the some 2 million male prisoners nationwide have been either pressured
or forced to submit to sex at least once. Stop Prisoner Rape, an organization
co-founded by Stephen Donaldson, a Vietnam
veteran who was raped repeatedly after being jailed for protesting the
Vietnam War, argues that one prisoner in five has been sexually abused
and that one in 10 has been raped.
Yet most Americans accept prison rape as a harsh reality, and their
jokes imply that the victims are getting their just reward. "The only people
who care are the relatives, and they are usually poor and uneducated,"
explains Cal Skinner Jr., a conservative Republican who fought for state
prison reform during eight terms in the Illinois Legislature. Skinner eventually
paid a high price for his activism when he lost a reelection bid to an
opponent who mocked his efforts to end prison rape. But he and others continue
to work against the abuses. Their findings won't set up many punch lines.
The victims often haven't been convicted of crimes, Kupers says. Many
prison rapes happen in poorly supervised local jails to short-time prisoners
who are found innocent or sometimes not even charged with a crime.
Most of those who have been convicted are serving time for nonviolent
offenses. But to survive behind bars, they are forced to adapt to the culture
of brutality, says Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute
in Washington, D.C. Many have trouble leaving it behind once set free.
"Prisons have a far better chance of turning a nonviolent inmate into an
armed robber than into a law-abiding citizen," Schiraldi says.
Worse still is Skinner's ominous warning that research conducted by
his legislative staff found an alarming amount of HIV among prisoners.
"Prison systems in many states are a major breeding grounds for the AIDS
virus, and that can give rape victims an unadjudicated death sentence.
How can society live with that?"
Seven years ago, Lawrence Bittenbender was held temporarily in the Santa
Clara County jail in San Jose awaiting extradition to the state of Washington
to serve time for child molestation, a conviction to which he protests
his innocence and blames his ex-wife for a false accusation. He was placed
in a dormitory that housed 28 men. At 2 a.m., he was jumped by five inmates
who, he believes, had been told by guards of the nature of the charge against
him. He says he was awakened by a blanket thrown over his head and the
bodies of several men piling on top. He was forced to endure at least a
half-hour of rape.
"I had no idea it was coming," he says. "All of a sudden, I couldn't
breathe. Someone grabbed at my clothes. Someone thumped my head." The raping
"was excruciating, pain that seemed to go on forever. There was blood everywhere."
He says he required surgery to repair the damage to his sphincter muscle.
Bittenbender, now 46, is serving time in McNeil Island Corrections Center
in Washington. He is bitter and angry, a powerful man ready to use his
strength and rage without hesitation. He never stops being watchful and
pumps iron preparing for the day of the next attack. "I know how to take
care of myself now. If someone tries it again, no matter how long his sentence
is, he'll be free in the morning. I'll take a lot of damage, and I'll kill
him." To prove his resolve, he goes to great lengths to explain an ingenious
way that a "shiv" (homemade knife) can be made out of everyday materials.
The state of California knows that violent sexual assaults are common,
but refuses to take meaningful steps to prevent them, says a high-ranking
official with the Department of Corrections who asked that his name be
withheld. Prison rape "is not treated as a problem," he says. "We don't
do anywhere near all we could to prevent it."
California corrections officials say they have no idea how many rapes
occur in their prisons, although Brian Parry, a corrections assistant director
who recently retired, says, "In terms of numbers, I don't see it as a big
problem. It doesn't get reported very frequently."
Others in the department disagree. They see rape as a cancer that corrections
does not fight aggressively because acknowledging its extent would make
the department look bad and make the state more vulnerable to lawsuits,
the high-ranking official says. It would also remove a tool that many prison
guards use to control prisoners, Robertson says. "There's an implicit quid
pro quo between some officers and gangs, as well as the more aggressive
inmates: You keep the lid on and we'll leave you alone."
Paul Wright, 37, is editor of Prison Legal News, a monthly newspaper,
while serving time at Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington for the
botched robbery-murder of a drug dealer in 1987. He has never been attacked
in prison because, he says, "I was older, bigger and could defend myself."
But he became aware of the problem while confined. "We'd be watching television,
and you know how you get to a silent part of a movie? We'd hear prisoners
screaming for help: 'Guard, guard, help! I'm being raped!' and guards wouldn't
respond."
The issue briefly flared into prominence in California in 1998, when
four guards at Corcoran State Prison near Fresno stood trial on the criminal
charge that they had used rape as a disciplinary tool by allowing a sinister
inmate called the "Booty Bandit" to rape an L.A. gang member named Eddie
Dillard repeatedly. The four were acquitted. Even so, says the corrections
official, some guards allow rapes to go on. "Absolutely. It's a mentality
and ego thing [among guards] who think, 'I'm God and I have the power.'
"
William Rigg, a retired lieutenant in the California Department of Corrections,
says the prison system simply regards rapes with indifference. "They just
don't care, from the C.O.s [correctional officers] all the way up to the
director of corrections. The governor, to him the CDC is a pain in the
butt. The less he hears about it, the happier he is."
The powerful union that represents prison guards, the California Correctional
Peace Officers Assn., does not see inmate sexual assault as a problem.
Lance Corcoran, executive vice president and a former guard, says offenses
may be "underreported," but he believes that most occasions of sexual contact
are consensual. He says it is "nonsense" to claim that some guards conspire
to use sexual assault as a tool of manipulation.
Roscoe Pondexter of Fresno, who served as a guard for eight years in
Soledad and Corcoran prisons before resigning in 1996, says he personally
reported to superiors five inmate complaints of sexual assault. "They weren't
taken seriously," he says. "There was no great effort to substantiate them."
Pondexter says that, typically, victims tend to be troublemakers, child
molesters and rapists, the very people whom guards do not find sympathetic.
He says guards feel that such victims "got what they deserved. They did
it to someone on the streets, so now someone is doing it to them."
People on the outside blink in bewilderment at the idea of one man raping
another. The confusion begins with any notion that these are typical homosexual
activities. Technically, that may be true, but the term is not valid in
the eyes of the most important definers--the prisoners. As in heterosexual
rapes, primary motivations are an intermingling of power, domination and
anger. It is accepted dogma in prison that rapists are not homosexuals,
says Chuck Terry, 50, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal
justice at St. Louis University who served time in California and Oregon
prisons for heroin use. The distinction allows predators to masquerade
their activities as super-masculine.
Convicted rapists and child molesters are always targets of prison rapists,
but also at grave risk are inmates who are young and naive, short-termers,
or those who are effeminate in appearance or manner and not aggressive
in defending themselves. Their attackers are generally gang members in
for long-term violent offenses.
A former sex criminal, who asked not to be identified, describes how
it "goes down," as though relating a trip to the grocery store. Since his
release from California's Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, he has become
a drug dealer in Southern California and, his acquaintances say, is almost
certainly a murderer.
"The biggest man, strongest man [in prison] was a friend of mine, Bo,
from Washington, D.C.," the former inmate says. "He raped about 20 men.
He had a fetish. On the outside, he raped women for a hobby. That's why
he ended up there. But when he got into the penitentiary, a man was a desired
thing for him. I helped him set up men and I would partake also. He was
a good friend, but if he didn't like you, he'd rape you before he killed
you.
"I used to sic Bo on a lot of men. White, black, Mexican. For all kinds
of reasons. Maybe someone [would] be sitting here and not get up fast enough.
We rolled with the Black Guerrilla Family, part of the nationwide penitentiary
circuit." As for homosexuals or men with light skin, "they'd be raped all
the time. Once you turned 'em, they gonna be women from then on. Aryan
Nation did their own people, too. If we had one who didn't have any backbone,
we might trade him to them for a favor and they'd do the same."
Jim Hogshire, 44, is a writer who has looked at bars from the wrong
direction. He is the author of "You're Going to Prison," a primer on the
criminal justice system. "Prison is a deadly place occupied by weird guys
who are usually not very bright, who are very aggressive and often sociopathic,"
Hogshire says. "These are guys who in the free world, if they can't get
an online computer hook-up, they go berserk. Cutting in front of them in
the chow line is something huge. It's like being transplanted back to the
Middle Ages. Once you understand that, you can accept that rape is an extremely
common occurrence, and anyone not morbidly obese or covered with sores
faces the likelihood of having to submit to sexual assault."
He says the most vulnerable will be beaten and raped as often as necessary
until they seek help from an "old man," a predator who will give protection
but will also make sexual demands. "Once you've become someone's punk,
you stay a punk and your old man will use you any way he wants. He might
send you out to perform sexual acts for a marijuana joint, candy or anything
else of value. You have become 'currency.' "
Male victims of prison rape very likely will react to the trauma of
rape with similar emotions as female victims: shock, anger, guilt and humiliation,
says Lara Stemple, executive director of Stop Prisoner Rape, which is based
in Los Angeles. These feelings are intensified if they are raped repeatedly,
which sometimes occurs for years. They also feel deep shame at being unable
to defend themselves, and that failure destroys their sense of manhood,
she says.
There is a perception that prison rapists are black and victims white,
but many who have observed it say this is an oversimplification. However,
most California prison confrontations--whether over gambling, drugs, sex
or debts--do end up being played out along racial lines. Race is the prison
fault line. Often, whites fit the prey profile more than blacks or Latinos
because they commonly lack street smarts, and a higher proportion are in
for nonviolent drug or white-collar crimes. "Race is a factor to the extent
that whatever race is predominant, they tend to victimize the minority,"
Wright says. "It comes down to the pool of prey versus the pool of predators,
and whites aren't organized to protect each other and can be more easily
picked off one by one."
The international organization Human Rights Watch is less sanguine on
the subject. Its four-year study, called "No Escape" and released last
year, concluded that "white inmates are disproportionately targeted for
abuse." The report noncommittally cites two common theories for this: greater
violence in the black criminal subculture and payback for past racial abuses.
Women prisoners are also not immune from sexual attack, but it almost
always comes from male guards. The numbers are far fewer, but it is an
egregious offense that has received greater public attention. Some who
study male rape are critical of what they see as the lack of support from
women's rape groups in focusing attention on the problem. "It's just not
on the radar screen for anti-rape activists," Wright says. "Rape of men
is about where rape of women was 50 years ago in terms of how the public
sees it. So victims 'deal with it' and cover it up."
"Put it this way," Vincent Schiraldi says: "You're a women's group waging
war on rapists--rapists are men! It's tough to retool, psychologically
and organizationally, and expand your outreach. But this might change as
the problem becomes better known."
Prison authorities often fall back on the theory that most prison sex
is consensual--even though there are not enough homosexual men in prison
to support the number of incidents. Additionally, since the range of coercion
extends from brutal force to providing "protection" in exchange for exclusive
sex, it is difficult to sort things out. Presumably because of that, and
because of the fear of AIDS, California prisons officially prohibit all
sexual contact between prisoners.
Prisoners nearing the end of their sentences are especially at risk
because they fear having their term extended by fighting back. They just
want to be left alone to serve their time, but they rarely are. Still,
they keep their secrets to themselves. Jim Hogshire explains it by putting
himself in the mind of a victim: "OK, I've gotta do this [endure rape],
but I'm not telling anyone on the outside. And when I get out, I'll put
it behind me.
"To them, the humiliation and hell of being punked-out is not as bad
as getting a lifetime sentence for killing someone or even being killed,"
Hogshire continues. "It's an awful choice, but it's the only choice some
guys get. And the choice is final. Many just kill themselves. Those who
live and are released reenter society every bit as [screwed up] as you
might expect."
The public also has another reason to fear the mental state of prison
rape victims who have served their sentences. Many of them are carrying
sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Prison officials are aware
that the combination of sexual assault and the rapid rise of these diseases
creates a lethal mix in prisons, but many choose to ignore the problem,
says Robert Dumond, a former mental health director with the Massachusetts
penal system. As a case in point, he says that virtually no data has been
collected nationally showing the extent of infection arising from sexual
assault, though "everyone knows it happens commonly."
Citing budget woes, the California Department of Corrections does not,
as a rule, give blood tests to new inmates. The department, therefore,
has no idea how many inmates have undetected HIV/AIDS or hepatitis, although
an earlier state study indicated that about one-third of all new convicts
have either hepatitis
B or C. The corrections department says it does know that 20,434 inmates
have hepatitis B or C; 742 have HIV and another 582 have full-blown AIDS,
up from 157 in 1999. All of these sick inmates are housed in the general
population. "We don't isolate because there is little risk of infection
except through blood or bodily fluids," a spokesman says.
Told of this practice, Dumond responds with a long, mirthless laugh.
"That's unbelievable," he says. "No, that's frightening." Dumond now serves
as a consultant to Stop Prisoner Rape, the organization co-founded by Stephen
Donaldson. Years after being raped while jailed for his war protest, Donaldson
was imprisoned again, this time for threatening medical personnel who refused
to treat a hand he had injured. Donaldson was raped again--and caught the
AIDS virus, which killed him after his release.
Is there anything that prisons can do day-to-day to diminish this predation?
Hogshire believes so. He says, with some hyperbole, "They could stop this
stuff tomorrow morning. If they sent perpetrators to Pelican Bay [an ultra-maximum-security
prison] where they could spend their days in isolation, and if they also
transferred their victims to other institutions without the snitch rap
in their files [so it could not be learned later that they were informers],
they would be scaring the hell out of would-be rapists and, at the same
time, telling their victims that speaking up wouldn't mean a shiv in the
back."
William Rigg believes that the number of incidents can be greatly reduced
by prompt administrative action when a rapist is identified. "Single cell
and walk alone," he says, meaning that contact with other inmates is minimized
or eliminated.
Craig Haney is a psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz who has studied
prison life. He says that one tool prison officials could use is conjugal
visits, which are now barred in California prisons for inmates serving
life sentences. He believes that such privileges would release pent-up
sexual pressures and allow officials give-and-take-away leverage with inmates.
State and federal laws also would help, although finding legislators
to champion the cause is nearly hopeless. "Prisoner-rights issues are dogs
when it comes to legislation," Schiraldi says. "Helping inmates is nuclear
waste, politically."
Just ask Cal Skinner, the former Illinois legislator who pushed for
prison reforms. His opponent in the 2000 primary election accused him of
being more interested in convicts than in constituents, and he was defeated.
Skinner says his greatest frustration, however, was his inability to push
through effective laws aimed at stopping prison rape in Illinois. That
result is mirrored in other states where legislation also generally fails,
he says. "There's no lobbyist crusading against prison rape. For a lawmaker,
it's a mission without political reward."
Sacramento is silent on the issue. An official with the California Senate's
Public Safety Committee, who asked not to be identified, says that he can't
recall any bills introduced on the subject.
Congress is considering action against rape in the form of "The Prison
Rape Reduction Act," which has strong bipartisan support. Whether President
Bush signs it into law or not is still an open question. The bill, which
applies to both state and federal prisons, requires the Justice Department
to create a clearinghouse for statistics on prison rape nationwide, ties
federal funding for prisons to levels of rape occurrences, provides a hotline
for victims and creates a training program for corrections officials. It's
not exactly a Magna Carta on the subject, but, as Schiraldi says, "It's
a start."
When prison rapes occur, responsibility for prosecuting perpetrators
falls on local district attorneys. The problem is, Schiraldi says, that
D.A.s are often loath to file charges because those prosecutions could
be seen as coming to the defense of criminals. And in most jurisdictions,
spending local tax money to protect criminals, even if they're victims,
becomes a politically risky act.
Consequently, the main hope for convicts who believe they have been
wronged has always been the courts. However, because inmates often have
to serve as their own attorneys, the barriers are high, James Robertson
says. For an inmate to prove a violation of the 8th Amendment ban on cruel
and unusual punishment, for example, he must show that the prison staff
practiced deliberate indifference, which is exceedingly difficult. Historically,
inmates file lawsuits in federal courts because they distrust state courts.
However, the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 makes it much
more difficult to prevail in federal court, often leaving inmates feeling
as if they have no place to go for legal protection.
Forcing prisoners to seek shelter from "cruel and unusual punishment"
at the hands of other prisoners is itself an indictment of the American
justice system, Vincent Schiraldi says. Or, as the Russian writer Fyodor
Dostoevsky said more pointedly in "The House of the Dead," a novel based
upon the four years he served for sedition in Russia's abysmal 19th century
prisons: The degree to which a society is civilized can be judged by entering
its prisons.
021103
LT021102
Californian
Prisons: Failure to protect prisoners from abuse Amnesty
International's continuing concerns
January
1997: Guards at Calipatria State Prison allegedly incited a white supremacist
inmate gang to beat up two openly gay prisoners -- Eugene McCann and Jeffery
McKilligan -- according to a lawsuit filed in April 2000.
April
2000: The trial opened in the case of eight guards indicted on federal
charges of having incited violence by staging ''gladiator style'' fights
among prisoners in Corcoran Prison's High Security Unit between 1988 and
1994 -- incidents during which guards shot dozens of unarmed prisoners,
seven fatally.
These
cases are two of a whole series of incidents in Californian prisons during
the past decade, in which guards have been accused of failing to protect
prisoners or deliberately setting them up for attack. Amnesty International
is concerned that the prison authorities failed to enforce policies, procedures
and laws which could have prevented these brutal acts. Although there have
been some recent changes in policy, the organization remains concerned
that the authorities may not be doing enough to prevent similar abuses
from taking place.
The
cases of concern include the following:
• In
January 1997 guards at Calipatria State Prison allegedly incited a white
supremacist inmate gang to beat up two openly gay prisoners -- Eugene McCann
and Jeffery McKilligan -- which came to light in a lawsuit filed in April
2000. The lawsuit alleges that prison officials subsequently conspired
to cover up the guards' role in the attack.
Prison
guards are accused of having intentionally opened McCann and Mckilligan's
cell so that a group of prisoners belonging to a white supremist gang could
attack them. On 24 January Mckilligan was stabbed; two days later both
McCann and Mckilligan were attacked and severely beaten by the gang. The
victims maintained that the guards knew in advance that the attack would
happen and were motivated by a hatred of gays.
Amnesty
International believes that these attacks are part of an institutional
pattern of abuse in the Californian prison system that deny prisoners'
rights to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment. Such treatment is contrary to international standards regarding
the treatment of prisoners, including the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, both of
which have been ratified by the US Government.
In
August 1999, Amnesty International wrote to the Californian Department
of Corrections about guards' failure to protect a gay prisoner who in July
1999 was strangled to death by another inmate known to be dangerous, after
he was left alone with him for over an hour in the exercise yard of the
Corcoran Security Housing Unit (SHU).
Anthony
G. Delgado strangled fellow inmate Kevin Mahoney after being placed alone
with him in an exercise yard inside the SHU. It is believed that Kevin
Mahoney's homosexuality left him particularly vulnerable as a target for
inmate assault. The guard in question was reported never to have manned
the exercise yard before and, instead of supervising the whole yard, to
have concentrated on supervising another group of inmates in an adjacent
yard.
Amnesty
International urged the Department of Corrections to ensure that the inquiry
into the death of Kevin Mahoney include a thorough review of policy and
practice related to a series of incidents, and that the findings of the
inquiry, and of other related investigations, be made public.
• In
April 2000 the trial opened in the case of eight guards indicted on federal
civil rights charges for having incited violence by staging ''gladiator
style'' fights among prisoners in Corcoran Prison's High Security Unit
between 1988 and 1994. The prison guards allegedly conspired to brutalize
prisoners by setting up fights between rival gang members for ''blood sport'',
and then shooting when fistfights broke out. Two prison guards who eventually
became ''whistle blowers'' exposed a system that allowed use of deadly
force to quell inmate fights and resulted in 31 inmate shootings between
1989 and 1995, seven of them fatal. However, the guards who reported the
abuse were subsequently threatened, ostracised and forced to resign.
Four
of the guards on trial face possible life sentences for civil rights abuses
including the fatal shooting of inmate, Preston Tate, during one of the
1994 brawls, moments after a guard allegedly said: ''It's going to be
duck hunting season''. The four other officers could receive a 10-year
sentence over another 1994 fight. The guards were indicted in 1998 after
years of internal investigations and legislative hearings produced no charges.
State legislative hearings in 1998 criticized the Department of Corrections
for failing to investigate or prevent abuses in prisons and for inadequate
discipline and oversight.
• Another
disturbing case is the rape of prisoner Eddie Dillard by another inmate
in Corcoran Prison in March 1993. Evidence was later uncovered suggesting
that guards had deliberately set him up to be attacked by leaving him in
the cell of a known sexual predator over a two-day period to punish him
for kicking a female guard at another prison. However, a state criminal
investigation into the allegations was abandoned in 1997 when prison guards
refused to testify against their colleagues. Amnesty International wrote
to the authorities to express concern at the dropping of the inquiry based
on the ''code of silence'' among officers, especially as there appeared
to be other evidence to support the victim's allegations.
The
case was later reopened and four guards were eventually charged. However,
both denied the allegations and they were acquitted by a jury at their
trial in November 1999. The guards had been represented by their union
and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association who also waged
a media campaign to support them throughout the trial. This case again
illustrates the difficulties involved in bringing guards to justice for
abuses in the California prison system.
The
Californian Department of Corrections has been forced to change some of
its procedures in recent years following mounting concern about the scale
of abuses and cover-ups in the prison system. It has introduced several
changes to its shooting policy and guards are now prohibited from shooting
prisoners to break up fights. This has led to a drop in shootings since
1995 (prior to this more prisoners in California were shot by guards than
the rest of the country put together). Other measures introduced include
tightening use-of-force regulations -- four different bills were passed
to improve training, clarify when use of lethal force is necessary and
help guards use better judgement.
In
a positive move in late 1998 the California Department of Corrections established
both a centralized Office of Internal Affairs and an Office of Inspector
General to investigate serious complaints of abuses in prisons across the
state, rather than, as previously, leaving all internal investigations
to the individual prisons. The Inspector General has a much broader role
as well as more independence than the Office of Internal Affairs as he
reports directly to the governor and has the power to make independent
investigations and recommendations. However, it is unclear what proportion
of cases are investigated by either body or even how effective this step
has been. Amnesty International remains concerned that not enough is being
done to protect prisoners from guards who incite attacks on prisoners by
other inmates.
On
23 February 2000 it was reported that a riot broke out among 260 prisoners
of known rival factions in the B yard at Pelican Bay State Prison. Guards
shot 13 inmates, killing one, while apparently trying to stop this riot.
Federal authorities charged two ex-Pelican Bay guards with arranging violent
attacks on inmates; these indictments came only nine days after the conviction
of another former Pelican Bay guard in a 1994 shooting. Amnesty International
believes these shootings raise serious questions about the failure of the
authorities in insuring a safe environment for prison and staff, about
the use of lethal force on prisoners and the practice of placing prisoners
from rival factions in the same yard together.
Amnesty
International is once again asking the Californian authorities what measures
have been put in place to ensure the protection of inmates from abuse,
to ensure that correctional officers are under a duty to report abuse of
prisoners by fellow officers and urging that any prison officer found to
have been involved in abuse is removed from the prison system.
The
human rights organization is also reiterating its call to the authorities
to develop, implement and rigorously enforce standards for correctional
facilities that are consistent with international human rights standards
for the treatment of prisoners, and which forbid torture and cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment. The authorities should consider the adequacy of
training and supervision given to wardens and guards in the Security Housing
Units, including inmate classification and the manning of exercise yards.
Amnesty
International is urging the authorities to take all measures to ensure
that violence perpetrated by staff or inmates does not take place in correctional
facilities, that alleged incidents be independently investigated and that
those responsible be brought to justice.
Prison
guards often ignore inmate rape, and even encourage it to punish prisoners
who step out of line.
-
- - - - - - - - - - -
By
Christian Parenti
Eddie
Dillard, a 23-year-old gang member from Los Angeles serving time for assault
with a deadly weapon in California's Corcoran State Prison, was a prison
malcontent. One day Dillard made the mistake of kicking a female guard;
for this sin and others he was promoted to the top of the correctional
officers' shit list.
Dillard
was transferred to the cell of Wayne Robertson, better known as the "Booty
Bandit." For a time, his vocation was beating, torturing and sodomizing
fellow inmates while prison guards looked the other way. This psychopathic
serial rapist was the guards' resident enforcer, one whose specialty was
reining in abrasive young toughs.
Dillard
protested the transfer, pointing out that Robertson was a known predator.
"Since you like hitting women, we've got somebody for you," came the reply.
There, in a tiny box with the Booty Bandit, began the tragic re-education
of Eddie Dillard.
Lessons
commenced with verbal abuse and threats, soon progressing to a violent
and bloody assault in which Robertson beat the smaller, younger Dillard
into submission. For the next several days Robertson beat, raped, tortured
and humiliated Dillard, tearing open his rectum in the process. Guards
and other inmates listened to the echoes of the young man screaming, crying
for help and begging for mercy.
When
the cell door finally opened to let him out, Dillard rushed onto the tier
and refused to go back inside. But it was too late: He had been "turned
out." He was reduced to a psychologically broken, politically servile "punk"
-- in the prison argot, the lowest form of life. Dillard was now jailhouse
chattel, to be sodomized, traded and sold like a slave. Robertson, on the
other hand, received new tennis shoes and extra food for his services.
When
he was released from prison, Dillard told the Los Angeles Times of the
trauma he still suffers: "They took something from me that I can never
replace. I've tried so many nights to forget about it, but the feeling
just doesn't go away. Every time I'm with my wife, it comes back what he
did to me. I want a close to the story. I want some salvation. But it keeps
going on and on."
Dillard's
case is not an isolated incident. Though using rape as a management tactic
may sound like an extreme concept, the Dillard case appears not to have
been an isolated incident. The Boston Globe, for example, reported that
guards in Massachusetts prisons have used known rapists in the same fashion
as their California counterparts: "Several prisoners at Shirley [State
Prison] said that Slade [a notorious prison rapist] has had a long history
of attacks there, but that he is typically reshuffled by the guards into
cells with 'fresh fish,' or new inmates."
In
the age of AIDS, such prison discipline often amounts to a slow-motion
death sentence. As one Massachusetts prison rape survivor put it, "Nowhere
in the book of rules was it written that I got to be here to get raped,
that I have to have them destroy my mind, that I am supposed to get AIDS."
This same inmate, who is HIV-positive, said he went to the guards for protection,
but their response was: "Welcome to Shirley. Toughen up, punk."
The
story is repeated across the country.
"Everything
and everybody in here worked to keep you a whore -- even the prison," explained
James Dunn, a prisoner and onetime sex slave in Louisiana's notorious Angola
prison. "If a whore went to the authorities, all they'd do is tell you
that since you [are] already a whore, they couldn't do nothing for you,
and [that you should] go back to the dorm and settle down and be a good
old lady. Hell, they'd even call the whore's old man up and tell him to
take you back down and keep you quiet ... the most you'd get out of complaining
is some marriage counseling, with them talking to you and your old man
to iron out your difficulties."
A
veteran corrections officer, also from Louisiana, described a similar situation
in a recent letter to a newspaper: "There are prison administrators who
use inmate gangs to help manage the prison. Sex and human bodies become
the coin of the realm. Is inmate 'X' writing letters to the editor of the
local newspaper and filing lawsuits? Or perhaps he threw urine or feces
on an employee? 'Well, Joe, you and Willie and Hank work him over, but
be sure you don't break any bones and send him to the hospital. If you
do a good job, I'll see that you get the blondest boy in the next shipment.'"
When
asked to comment on prison rape, Massachusetts Department of Correction
spokesman Anthony Carnevale explained: "Well, that's prison ... I don't
know what to tell you." Inmate-on-inmate rape in male prisons remains largely
ignored, despite the fact that it is central to the politics of incarceration.
The group Stop Prison Rape Inc. estimates that 600,000 men and boys are
raped every year in American correctional facilities. (Other academic studies
place the number much lower.)
Most
state prison systems, as well as the Federal Bureau of Prisons, lump all
assaults, sexual and otherwise, into a single category; thus, they have
no idea how many rapes are reported. Whatever the real figure, rape appears
to be an integral part of prison life and one of its most terrifying features.
Prison
rights activists say the struggle to bring attention to prison rape is
often an uphill one. "Prison rape continues because it's a management tool.
It benefits the guards and wardens. There's no way around that fact," explains
Tom Cahill, of Stop Prison Rape. Cahill should know. Thirty years ago,
as a young political activist in San Antonio, Texas, he was set up by prison
guards and gang-raped.
"I
was put in a gorilla cage. That's a cell organized by guards for a 'turning
out party,'" says Cahill. "They told everyone I was a child molester."
Six of Cahill's 30 cellmates beat, tortured and raped him for two days.
And like thousands of other survivors, his life was never the same.
"It's
the ultimate humiliation, and it works on you for the rest of your life,"
says Cahill, his voice raising with anger. "I still feel mistrustful of
people, and even among my friends I feel stigmatized. I still have flashbacks
and bouts of incredible, consuming rage."
Cahill's
inner turmoil led to the destruction of his marriage. He ended up on the
streets, and got involved in political fights that often landed him back
in jail. While proud of his left-wing politics, Cahill now sees much of
his sojourn as a macho and quixotic quest for redemption. Today, at age
62, Cahill lives on the bucolic north coast of California, where he channels
his anger into activism.
Many
survivors are not so lucky. Some never pull out of the psychological nose-dive
caused by prison rape and crash into a life of violence, self-destruction
and sexual aggression.
Victims
of prison rape often turn their anger against innocents when they are set
free. John William King -- the young white supremacist who dragged African-American
James Byrd to death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998 -- is one such case. King
was an ex-con; he'd served 21 months for burglary in the Beto Unit, the
toughest joint in Texas. Shortly after arriving in prison, King -- then
5-foot-7 and 140 pounds -- was attacked by black prisoners and raped, according
to his attorneys. He emerged from the dungeon transformed.
Prison
rape victims often implode psychologically after they return to the outside
world. Jeannette Eatton saw that happen to her 19-year-old son, Alan. While
serving time for petty theft and under-age drinking Alan was befriended
by an older convict named "Cowboy, " who eventually raped his good-looking
young friend at knifepoint.
"Alan
wasn't the same after that. He withdrew and started disliking people. He'd
always been a people person. And he despised gays after that," says Jeannette
Eatton.
Six
months after his release, a drunken, bitter Alan Eatton crashed his motorcycle
and died. He'd just turned 20. In death, the young man from central Illinois
drew an unlikely comparison to the famous T.E. Lawrence, who was almost
undoubtedly raped in a Turkish prison. Lawrence -- solider, author, adventurer
and champion of the Arab cause -- was a classic case of post-rape self-destruction.
His dissolution involved self-imposed isolation, rage and depression; he
abandoned his career and then died in a motorcycle accident that looked
suspiciously suicidal.
More
often than not, prison higher-ups ignore the problem. Utah prison officials,
for instance, seeking accreditation of the system's medical facilities,
maintained that there had never been a single rape in any Utah prison.
Among the many nasty facts deflating the claim was a detailed trial transcript
in which one inmate was convicted and sentenced to 15 years for raping
a fellow prisoner.
In
Massachusetts, following the Boston Globe expos?, corrections bureaucrats
still felt free to deny reality -- even as a freshly raped convict was
in the hospital under going rectal surgery.
Such
denials are perfectly rational: To admit that inmates rape each other is
to invite lawsuits. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled in Farmer vs. Brennan
that penitentiary officials are responsible for protecting prisoners from
sexual predation. The case was launched by Dee Farmer, a pre-op transgender
person serving 20 years for credit-card fraud, who was housed in a tank
full of violent male prisoners -- where, to no one's surprise, Farmer was
promptly and viciously gang raped.
Since
then, several other inmates have tried to sue for damages after contracting
HIV as jailhouse sex slaves. One Illinois case was filed by Michael Blucker,
a 28-year-old, married man serving time for a nonviolent crime. Blucker
says he was beaten, gang-raped and then coerced into a form of sex slavery.
In at least two cases correctional officers allegedly escorted Blucker
from cell to cell, where he was raped and forced to service customers who
paid his prison-guard pimps with cigarettes, drugs and candy.
Despite
the precedent set in Farmer's case, Blucker was not awarded damages. Upon
his release he became a devout born-again Christian who treats his HIV
with prayer rather than protease inhibitors.
The
transformation from convict to "punk" usually begins in one of two ways.
A younger inmate might be taken under the wing of an older inmate; once
debt and dependence are established the older inmate will rape and "turn
out" the young prisoner.
Alternatively,
a gang of inmates may attack a weaker prisoner with overwhelming numbers
and "punk" their prey. Once the victim has been "turned out," the aggressors
announce their control to the general population, which in turn cements
the deal through its tacit or active approval of the victim's new status.
The freshly minted punk will find himself vulnerable to assault from all
sides, as the prison grapevine informs everyone of his subordinate status.
In the interests of survival, the targeted prisoner will usually choose
one inmate as his "daddy" or "husband." In exchange for control of the
punk, the "man" offers protection against other aggressors.
Although
the "daddies" have sex with other men, they are, in the hyper-macho cosmology
of prison, not homosexual -- because they are not sexually penetrated themselves.
The cult of manhood -- and the struggle to defend, defile and define it
-- is the axis around which the prison sex system turns.
The
prison world's other subordinate "gender" is the "queens" -- transsexuals
and cross-dressers who may embrace homosexual sex and a sexually submissive
position in the prison hierarchy. Queens suffer sexual assault, but often
they use their sexual powers and feminine charms to play stronger inmates
off one another or to find a husband of their own liking.
By
whatever route one arrives, the second sex of the Big House are, like many
women outside, forced into roles that range from nurturing wife to denigrated,
over-worked "whore."
The
fatalistic logic of the joint explains away the workings of this system
with a sort of macho karma: "He must have wanted it or he would have fought
it off." The only one path of escape for the punk or potential punk is
to kill his persecutor. But for a young man facing only five years it's
a tough choice: be raped or commit murder and face a potential life sentence.
Convict
and writer Jack Henry Abbot took the latter path. "I was even told by the
pigs who transported me to prison that I was being sent there to be reduced
to a punk, to be shorn of my manhood," wrote Abbot in his classic "In the
Belly of the Beast." "They felt I would be less arrogant once I had been
turned into a cocksucker ... Before I was twenty-one years old I had killed
one of the prisoners and wounded another. I never did get out of prison.
I never was a punk."
One
of the few not-so-dark spots on the landscape is the San Francisco county
jail system, run by maverick former lawyer Michael
Hennessey and his right-hand man, Michael Marcum -- whose r?sum? includes
fratricide and five years' hard time at Folsom Prison.
"The
most important thing you can do," explains Hennessey, "is have a thorough
system for vetting prisoners. You have to separate violent and nonviolent
offenders and, within those categories, the vulnerable from dangerous."
San Francisco also has a clear protocol that, unlike most jail and prison
systems, does not force victims to name their attackers. Hennessey has
also designed his two new jails to avoid "blind spots," the standard terrain
of assaults. In 1998 the San Francisco jail system, with a daily population
of about 2,000, had nine reported rapes. When asked what he thought the
real number of rapes was, Hennessey paused. "I'd like to think it's not
too much higher than that."
salon.com
| August 23, 1999
Los Angeles Times
October 20, 1999, Wednesday, Home Edition
SECTION: Part A; Page 3; Metro Desk
LENGTH: 790 words
HEADLINE: CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST;
TEARFUL VICTIM TESTIFIES ON PRISON RAPE;
COURT: EX-INMATE ALLEGES HE WAS PLACED IN A CELL WITH THE 'BOOTY
BANDIT' AS PUNISHMENT FOR KICKING A GUARD. THE DEFENSE PORTRAYS WITNESS
AS A MALCONTENT.
BYLINE: MARK ARAX, TIMES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HANFORD, Calif.
BODY: In graphic and tearful testimony, former
inmate Eddie Dillard told a jury here Tuesday that he knew the fate that
awaited him when guards transferred him to the cell of Corcoran State Prison's
notorious "Booty Bandit."
Telling jurors that his account was too painful to recall in every detail,
Dillard said he pleaded with Officer Anthony Sylva that inmate Wayne Robertson
was his documented enemy and a well-known rapist as Sylva led him to Robertson's
cell that day in March 1993.
He said Sylva ignored his pleas and watched the cell door clang shut,
vowing that he would check out Dillard's claim and if true, come back to
relocate him.
But Dillard said no one returned and he was raped over and over during
the next few days.
"I can't describe it," Dillard told the Superior Court jury, breaking
down in tears. "Half of it I don't even want to remember. . . . I just
remember him raping me again."
Sylva and colleagues Robert Decker, Joe Sanchez and Dale Brakebill are
accused of aiding and abetting the rape of Dillard in the first trial of
Corcoran guards in nearly a decade. Prosecutors allege that one of their
motives was to punish Dillard, who had kicked a female guard at another
prison.
The officers deny knowing about Robertson's history of raping at least
a dozen cellmates and contend they had no ill motive in carrying out the
cell transfer.
During his three hours on the witness stand Tuesday, Dillard said that
after the first attack he told Sanchez that his life was in danger, but
was left in Robertson's cell to endure another attack.
" Sanchez told me, 'You can hit a woman, but you can't hit him,' " Dillard
said. "He laughed like it was a joke."
Dillard walked into the courtroom Tuesday only moments after Robertson,
6-foot-2 and 220 pounds, head shaved but for a small ponytail, was led
from the witness stand in manacles. Robertson, 42, had just finished testifying
that the guards brought Dillard to him to "teach him how to do his time."
The contrast between the two men--once members of the same Compton gang--could
not have been more stark. Dillard, 130 pounds and swallowed up by a baggy
white knit sweater, looked like a skinny teenager.
When he spoke, Dillard's voice came out almost squeaky. At one point,
the judge ordered a break in the trial when the 29-year-old man began to
sob and couldn't compose himself.
Just 10 feet away, the four officers sat in a row with heads bowed as
Dillard recounted the rape.
Sgt. Decker then shook his head and smirked, and defense attorney Wayne
Ordos leaned forward to the officers and questioned the sincerity of Dillard's
tears. "It's show time," Ordos said, out of earshot of the jury.
Dillard traced his troubles with Robertson to 1991, when they first
met at Tehachapi State Prison. Robertson was in for first-degree murder;
Dillard had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon for his role
in a drive-by shooting.
Even though they had belonged to the same gang, Dillard said, they hadn't
known each other on the street because of their age difference. He said
that shortly after their meeting Robertson asked that they share a cell
and made sexual advances. Dillard said he later caught Robertson leering
at him in the shower and the two got into a fight, Robertson knocking him
back with one punch. After that, prison reports first documented the inmates
as enemies.
The fact that they were enemies should have precluded Robertson and
Dillard from sharing a cell at Corcoran, according to corrections policy.
Dillard said he repeatedly told the officers about the bad blood between
them, but to no avail. He said he was locked in a cell with Dillard for
three days before he was able to flee when the cell door finally opened.
He suggested that officers then orchestrated a cover-up, which included
canceling his doctor's appointment for a rape exam, spreading the word
among other inmates that he was an easy mark, and pressuring him to drop
his complaint to corrections officials in Sacramento. Dillard testified
that Decker called him out of his new cell three months later and said
that if he didn't drop the complaint, he could "put me back in the cell
with Robertson."
Dillard said he then dropped the complaint for a time.
Defense attorneys sought to portray Dillard as a malcontent who was
quick to file complaints against guards.
During cross-examination, Ordos, who represents Sanchez, suggested that
any sexual activity between the inmates was consensual. He pointed out
that Dillard went to the doctor numerous times in the months after the
incident and never mentioned a rape.
The trial is expected to last three more weeks. If convicted, the officers
face up to nine years in prison.
HANFORD, Ca.--An inmate at the Cocoran state prison told a jury
that his rape of another inmate, who was considered a troublemaker, came
at the orders of prison correctional officers.
Wayne Robertson, the rapist, told the superior court that victim Eddie
Dillard should not have been put in his cell. Robertson claimed that the
officers knew the rape would occur, but they allowed it to happen in order
to teach Dillard a lesson.
"They knew Eddie Dillard was my enemy. And they knew who I was. They
put Dillard in my cell for something to happen to him," Robertson testified.
The testimony comes in the fourth week of the Kings County trial of
four officers accused of aiding and abetting the rape. If found guilty,
the officers could face one to nine years.
Tuesday October 5
By KILEY RUSSELL Associated Press Writer
HANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Four guards have gone on trial, accused of using
a known sexual predator to rape an inmate as punishment for kicking
a
female guard.
The alleged incident took place at the Corcoran State Prison, where
eight other officers face a later trial for allegedly setting up
gladiator-style battles among inmates for entertainment.
The guards are accused of putting 118-pound Eddie Dillard in the cell
of
Wayne J. Robertson, a 230-pound sexual predator serving a life sentence.
Robertson admitted to a grand jury that he sodomized Dillard and
threatened to kill him if he put up a fight during the three days in
1993 when guards left the smaller man in the cell.
...
``Dillard should have never been put in the cell with me, period,''
Robertson testified to a grand jury. ``The Corrections Department used
me as a pawn to get inmate Dillard.''
ehehehehheheeh
for the whole article.. go to the src.
src: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991005/us/prison_rape_trial_2.html
---
elcome to Corcoran State Prison, 170 miles northwest of Los Angeles in
the San Joaquin Valley; built at a cost of $271.9 million on what was once
Tulare Lake, home of the Tachi Indians; opened in l988, designed for 3,000
prisoners, now holding 5,030. Kings County has dairies, cotton fields and
two other state prisons besides. When they were selecting the jury for
the ongoing trial of four correctional officers in the town of Hanford,
fifteen miles from Corcoran, more than a third of the 500 residents called
for jury duty said they worked at one of the prisons or had a relative
in corrections.
This brings us to Eddie Dillard. In March l993 this slight man was sent
to Corcoran's Security Housing Unit after kicking an officer. Two guards
led him to a cell, opened the door, and Dillard stared up into the face
of Wayne Robertson, a k a the Booty Bandit, 6 foot 2. Dillard knew
Robertson. The man had made sexual overtures to him and they'd had a fight.
Dillard had formally reported that he and Robertson should never be housed
together.
"I'm not supposed to be in here," Dillard told the guards, who laughed
and strolled away. Robertson knew and has testified to his role. Guards
had told him Dillard "needs to learn how to do his time." For two days
the Booty Bandit raped Dillard while guards ignored Dillard's hints that
he was being attacked. Hints only, because Dillard didn't want to be killed
as a snitch. Finally, Dillard, temporarily out of the cell, refused to
return.
Six years later Dillard is getting his day in Kings County Superior
Court, with four guards charged with aiding and abetting his rape. Testifying
for the prosecution is Roscoe Pondexter, a 6-foot-7 former basketball star,
dismissed from the Corrections Department for excessive force and now a
man redeemed. Like Dillard, Pondexter is black. The accused are white or
Latino. The jury is white or Latino. It's the first criminal trial of Corcoran
guards in nearly a decade and should end later this month. Outside the
Los
Angeles Times and some other California newspapers, I've seen almost
nothing about the trial. This is shameful, since Corcoran vividly incarnates
the peculiar horrors of our national gulag.
Corcoran was conceived in the eighties as a model of "absolute control."
Its heart is the Security Housing Unit, holding l,500 of those deemed the
most dangerous of the state's metastasizing prison population. SHU guards
determinedly forced the integration of deadly rivals--Aryan Brotherhood
with Mexican Mafia, gang with gang. To quote the Times's Mark Arax,
whose reporting on Corcoran is one of the great journalistic achievements
of the decade, "By forcing such explosive combinations...corrections officials
believed that the gangs would brutalize each other into submission, according
to internal memos and interviews with SHU staffers. Integration, they said,
would bust the gangs."
The SHU opened for business on December 5, l988. By December 29 it saw
its first shooting when a guard wounded an SHU inmate "by mistake" with
a 9mm carbine. Then: 4/4/89, William Martinez shot dead in the SHU exercise
yard; 6/29/89, William Randoll shot dead in SHU exercise yard; 4/8/93,
Michael Mullins shot dead in general population yard; 5/l4/93, Vincent
Tulum shot through neck in SHU exercise yard, now quadriplegic; 9/9/93,
Henry Noriega shot dead in SHU exercise yard; 4/2/94, Preston Tate shot
dead in SHU exercise yard; 5/30/94, Donald Creasy, shot dead in his cell
by guards. All shootings were declared justifiable by review committees
and boards composed of Corrections Department employees.
By l996 Arax was reporting that whistleblowing guards had described
"gladiator days" at Corcoran, when guards would stage fights between inmates
and occasionally kill one of the antagonists. The state was investigating
a 1995 episode when shackled men arriving from Calipatria prison were savagely
beaten by guards screaming "Welcome to hell!" Even Governor Pete Wilson
felt the heat. In response, Corrections won a permanent ban on reporters'
face-to-face interviews with inmates.
In a draft report of April l997 an investigative team appointed by the
Corrections Department substantiated the "selective cover up of excessive
force" by Corcoran guards, plus the "disturbing" fact that potential targets
of the probe often investigated themselves. On the instigation of Governor
Wilson this draft was deep-sixed, and the California Justice Department
concluded that there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.
In l998 a federal grand jury indicted eight Corcoran guards for staging
gladiatorial combat, among other abuses.The Corrections Department, for
the first time in its history, said it would foot the guards' legal bills.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) told its
members they did not have to talk to investigators from the FBI or the
US Attorney's office.
The CCPOA, with 28,000 members, has lethal clout. When Greg Strickland,
the Kings County DA, prosecuted some Corcoran guards for the "Welcome to
hell" incident, the union put more than $25,000 behind his opponent. Strickland
went down. Last July Bill Lockyer, the state Attorney General, told legislators
that local DAs had admitted to him that they didn't dare go up against
the CCPOA. Lockyer learned soon enough what they meant. A bill giving him
power to police the prison system sailed through the State Senate; then
the CCPOA sank it in the Assembly. He quoted one Assemblyman, Jim Battin
(who later denied it) as saying, "Sorry, but I'm whoring for the CCPOA."
Battin has got $l05,000 from the guards' union in the past four years.
Can anyone curb the CCPOA? Don't look to Governor Gray Davis. He collected
$2.3 million from the union for his l998 campaign and has got more since.
In thanks he vetoed a bill that would have shifted parole violators to
community-based programs (lowering the prison population, hence the need
for guards). He also vetoed a bill to rescind the constraints on journalists.
Before the trial in Hanford the CCPOA ran local ads hailing the guards
who walk "the toughest beat in the state." This could be construed as jury-tampering,
not only for this trial but for the future federal one. There was a bleat
from a federal prosecutor but nothing more. A lot rests on the verdict
of the Hanford jurors.
Alexander Cockburn has been The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist
since 1984. One of America's best-known radical journalists, he currently
contributes a nationally syndicated column to the Los Angeles Times
and co-edits the newsletter CounterPunch. His latest book, written
with Jeffrey St. Clair, is Al Gore: A User's Manual (Verso, 2000).
Guarding
their silence
Prisoners'
rights advocates say a code of silence among prison guards led to the acquittal
of the officers charged with arranging the rape of an inmate.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By
Christian Parenti
Nov.
22, 1999 | The acquittal earlier this
month of four California corrections officers charged with arranging for
a young inmate to be raped by Corcoran State Prison's notorious "Booty
Bandit" was the result of a massive legal and political show of force on
the part of the state's prison guards union, prisoners' advocates say.
The four guards were facing nine years in prison.
State prosecutors alleged that in March 1993, the four Corcoran State
Prison Security Housing Unit officers, led by Sgt. Robert Alan Decker,
deliberately
transferred inmate Eddie Dillard to the cell of Wayne Robertson, aka
the "Booty Bandit" knowing that the younger, smaller inmate would be raped.
At trial, Robertson testified that he had indeed beaten and sodomized Dillard
for two days because guards had said that Dillard needed to "learn how
to do his time."
But the defense -- led by four adroit lawyers and funded by the guards'
union -- countered that the accused guards had no idea at the time that
Robertson was a rapist. "I agree that Wayne Robertson is a rapist and a
thug, but that fact was not known to the floor staff," said defense attorney
Curtis Sisk in his opening arguments. One of the officers told the jury
that the first time he even heard of Wayne Robertson was in an article
in the Los Angeles Times.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association -- which paid
the defendants' legal costs and launched a media campaign to support them
-- is one of the state's most powerful lobbies. During the last election
cycle, the group poured millions of dollars into state races, supporting
candidates from both parties and waging a $2 million media campaign on
behalf of Gov. Gray Davis.
"We are obviously very pleased. The four guards and their families are
the real victims here," said union president Don Novey.
With a pending federal trial and several criminal investigations of
prison staff still open, the CCPOA left as little as possible to chance
during the state investigation and trial. The union's publication, the
Peace Keeper, encouraged rank-and-file members not to trust or speak with
the FBI and state investigators. Critics of the union say this and quick
intervention by CCPOA lawyers effectively shut down the flow of information
at the source.
As the so-called "Booty Bandit" trial approached, the CCPOA also turned
to the public relations side of the political equation, targeting Hanford-area
residents with a slew of radio and TV ads full of menacing, tattooed convicts
and brave guards walking "the toughest beat in the state." (The union says
the timing of the ads was mere coincidence, and was not related to the
pending case.)
And once arguments in the case opened, the CCPOA's concern was manifest
in attendance of a steady stream of local chapter officials and union heavies.
For prisoners' rights activists like Tom Quinn, a private investigator
who specializes in researching cases against California jails and prisons,
the presence of CCPOA honchos was just another example of how a code of
silence is encouraged and enforced by the leadership of both the union
and the Department of Corrections.
"Fundamentally, the claim that these guards didn't know that Robertson
was a rapist is totally implausible," Quinn said. "The SHU [Security Housing
Unit] is a unique social experiment designed to generate information."
Along with elaborate records and dossiers kept on all the inmates, Quinn
points out that guards have a relatively clear view into most of the SHU
cells, both from the tier and from inside the control booth. "Furthermore,"
adds Quinn, "the C.O.s [correctional officers] are constantly working snitches.
They know who's who. And they knew ... that Robertson was a rapist."
Quinn's claims were affirmed by Connie Foster, who worked as a staff
member at Corcoran in 1993. "I heard about Robertson a week after I arrived,"
Foster said.
But despite claims like these, the state has had difficulty
breaking the guards' silence. Among other things, say the union's critics,
the CCPOA's massive campaign war chest has proved a valuable tool in discouraging
local district attorneys from prosecuting cases against prison guards.
The Dillard case, for example, was almost filed by the Kings County
district attorney, but Greg Strickland, who then held the county post,
dropped the charges, citing lack of evidence. Many speculate that Strickland
was also scared of the CCPOA. He had already crossed the group once, by
prosecuting Corcoran guards involved in a 1995 beating incident. Sure enough,
the union's wrath materialized during the next D.A.'s race, in the form
of a massive campaign donation to Strickland's opponent. In testimony before
a state legislative committee, Strickland suggested the creation of "an
independent prosecution unit" because, as he put it, "My incumbent owes
the CCPOA $30,000 worth of campaign contributions." That project was vetoed
by Gov. Davis, but a compromise was eventually struck, leading to the creation
of a new inspector general position, which is filled by gubernatorial appointment.
Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin said that getting good investigations
from local prosecutors and police forces in the small towns that house
many of these prisons continues to be a problem. He said in the Dillard
case specifically, there was no investigation after the crime was committed.
Barankin did acknowledge that, in the wake of this case and the federal
investigation at Corcoran, a number of changes have been implemented both
by the Legislature and the Department of Corrections. Besides the new inspector
general position, new shooting policies have been implemented at all state
prison facilities.
Still, Barankin conceded, the new policies are not a guarantee that
this will never happen again: "You can investigate until you're blue in
the face, but you still have the question of who prosecutes it." Barankin
said local district attorneys would normally prosecute these cases, but
that in the small counties where most state prisons are located, "to accept
one of these cases would eat up everybody you have in the place, plus every
red cent you've got to get one of these cases to court." The local D.A.
could hand the case off to the attorney general, but Barankin said by the
time that happens, usually "the A.G.'s office comes in to pull together
the pieces. D.A.s have their own investigators" who work closely with local
police right after the crime is reported. "It remains to be seen if this
new inspector general will work the same way."
While prisoners' rights activists sympathized with Barankin, they blamed
Lockyer's office -- specifically deputy attorney general Vern Pierson --
for botching the prosecution. They say the state's strategy failed to make
the code of silence and culture of terror at Corcoran central issues in
the case.
Based on his research of California jails and prisons, Quinn said the
"Booty Bandit" trial was about much more than the fate of four prison guards.
"Clearly, part of what was on trial here was the guards' code of silence,
the power of the CCPOA and the culture of terror that defines life in California's
maximum security prisons," he said.
Quinn acknowledged that much of that was impossible to pursue in court
when Judge Louis Bissig disallowed conspiracy charges brought against the
four guards. "Our hands were tied by some of the judge's rulings and the
fact that it took five years for this crime to surface and be prosecuted,"
Pierson told the Los Angeles Times. "And it's never easy when your best
witnesses of what really happened are felons and officers who have committed
[crimes] themselves."
That sentiment was echoed by Barankin. "Having the conspiracy charges
thrown out by the judge was gigantic. That can't be quantified," he said.
But Barankin conceded that "there were all sorts of places along the way
where things fell apart
Activists say much of the blame rests with Pierson, arguing
that his most crucial misstep was the handling of star witness Roscoe "Bonecrusher"
Pondexter. A former guard and onetime professional basketball player, Pondexter
testified against the four accused guards in exchange for immunity from
prosecution.
Pondexter testified that he was once a sadistic "search and escort"
officer in the Corcoran SHU. He ran with a gang of guards called the Sharks
and his specialty was to beat and strangle prisoners. "We would show them
'the Corcoran way' and tell them this was a 'hands on' institution," said
Pondexter. He was eventually fired for brutality.
But Pondexter's testimony was later picked apart by defense attorney
Katherine Hart, who showed that Pondexter was on vacation the day Dillard
was moved into the Booty Bandit's cell. Pondexter had previously testified
he was working that day. "You had a faulty memory about that, didn't you?"
asked Hart.
"Yes," Pondexter admitted, squandering much of his credibility in
the process.
Afterward, a vexed and embarrassed Pondexter was heard complaining
to a friend that Pierson hardly prepared him for testimony, briefing and
questioning him for only 25 minutes, just before he took the stand.
Barankin refuted that claim, saying prosecutors spent "a considerable
amount of time preparing Mr. Pondexter for the trial." When asked about
why they did not check records that showed Pondexter was not even working
that day, Barankin said, "The defense had access to information we didn't
have. We found out the same time [the jury] did."
Also missing from the state's case was much of the detail that had
emerged during grand jury testimony and during last year's legislative
hearings. According to both these inquiries, the story of the Dillard rape
and ensuing coverup went as follows: Dillard and Robertson -- both members
of the Piru Bloods, a Los Angeles street gang, though separated by a 20-year
age difference -- had first come into conflict at Tehachapi State Prison
in 1992. There Robertson made sexual advances on Dillard and was rebuffed.
Soon thereafter Robertson, already a documented jailhouse rapist, was transferred
to the Corcoran SHU.
In 1993, Dillard kicked a female guard and was sent north to Corcoran.
In his grand jury deposition, Robertson told how Sgt. Robert Alan Decker
showed him a list of four proposed cellmates. Robertson chose Dillard and
a few days latter, while lying on his bunk, looked up to see the protesting
Dillard being thrust into his cell by two officers.
Dillard explained the rest when he took the stand: "Before I knew
it, we were getting into it. We were tussling and he said he was going
to rape me. I tried to fight him off but I couldn't. He raped me," said,
Dillard, his voice breaking. Dillard finally escaped the cell when guards
came to take Robertson to an unrelated disciplinary hearing. Desperate,
Dillard refused to re-enter the cell.
Finally, Dillard told an officer that Robertson had raped him. The
officer filed a report and passed it on to a sergeant, but the report was
lost. Dillard was then examined by a prison medic, who saw no sign of rape.
A doctor examined Dillard and ordered a "rape kit" -- a full internal rape
examination -- but the order was quickly and mysteriously countermanded
and Dillard was never properly examined. After getting a new cell, Dillard
started sending administrative complaints, known as "602s," about Sgt.
Decker and the rape to officials in Sacramento.
Records show that on June 16, 1993, Dillard suddenly withdrew his
complaint and stopped his follow-ups. That was the same day that Decker
signed in for a visit with Dillard on his new cell block. According to
Dillard, Decker gave him a simple choice: Drop the 602, or go "back in
the cell with Robertson."
Little of this chronology was spelled out during the trial, though,
and none of the defense witnesses seemed to remember much -- all of which
undermined the prosecution's case.
"We went over everything, covered everything, a lot of documents,"
the jury foreman, who declined to give his name, told the Los Angeles Times.
"In the end, there was just too much reasonable doubt. There just wasn't
a lot of evidence that supported what the prosecutor was trying to prove."
That was the fault of the prosecution, said prisoners' rights attorney
Catherine Campbell. "My impression was that [Pierson] was on automatic,
doing a job that was distasteful to him," she said. "He had no moral passion.
The lapses, particularly the one with Pondexter -- that sort of thing throws
a witness off center."
The attorney general's office stood by Pierson, saying that he had
inherited an impossible situation. "The football field is littered with
Monday-morning quarterbacks," said Barankin. He agreed that "most right-thinking
people should feel a sense of moral outrage based upon the evidence that
we were privy to. Unfortunately, the jury was not allowed to hear all that
evidence."
The issue of the code of silence may yet be raised in court. Eight
other guards stand trial in March on federal charges for shooting Corcoran
inmates.
salon.com
| Nov. 22, 1999
-
- - - - - - - - - - -
About
the writer Christian
Parenti is the author of "Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age
of Crisis."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------November
10, 1999 on Democracy NOW!Story:
CORCORAN
GUARDS ARE ACQUITTED IN PRISONER RAPE TRIAL
Four Corcoran State Prison guards were acquitted this
Monday of setting up the March 1993 rape of a prisoner, a verdict that
was immediately praised by the prison guards union and condemned by prisoners
rights advocates.
The officers, Robert Decker, Joe Sanchez, Anthony Silva
and Dale Brakebill, were found not guilty of setting up the rape of Eddie
Dillard when they put him in a cell with a known sexual predator who was
nearly twice his size. Wayne Robertson, known by the nickname "the Booty
Bandit," raped Dillard repeatedly after the guards left Dillard in his
cell for two days. The incident took place at one of the most notoriously
violent prisons in the country.
The five week trial - the first criminal trial of Corcoran
guards in a decade - included testimony from Dillard and Robertson, as
well as a whistle blowing guard who participated in the brutal incident.
Nevertheless, the jury acquitted the four guards.
The stakes were high not only for the guards, but also
for the guards union and the attorney general's office, which was criticized
in legislative hearings last year for ignoring numerous incidents of brutality
at Corcoran. Another group of Corcoran prison guards face trial this coming
March for setting up "Turkey shoots" in the prison yard, putting prisoners
who are known enemies together, waging bets on the outcome of their fights
and shooting them.
Here are some original articles about the Dillard rape case from the
PNN archives:
The Fresno Bee
Inmate testifies about Corcoran prison rape Wayne Robertson says he spoke with a Corcoran guard before Eddie Dillard
was moved to his cell.
By Lewis Griswold
The Fresno Bee
(Published October 19, 1999)
Four Corcoran State Prison guards wanted inmate Eddie Dillard to learn
a lesson when they placed him in a cell with Wayne Robertson, an inmate
known to rape his cellmates, Robertson testified Monday.
Intense and articulate, Robertson, 42, told the jury of eight men and
four women in a Kings County courtroom that the guards who put Dillard,
23, into his cell knew better.
"He was my enemy," said Robertson, 6 feet 2 inches tall and 220 pounds.
"They knew if they put him in there something would happen to him."
Robertson, also known as the "Booty Bandit," testified that he spoke
with Sgt. Robert Allan Decker two days before Dillard, who weighed 118
pounds, was moved into the cell.
Decker told him Dillard "needs to learn to do his time," Robertson said.
"About two days later, the cellie I had was moved out and Dillard moved
in." That was March 5, 1993, a Friday.
The following day, Robertson said he kicked Dillard in the chest and
knocked the wind out of him. Dillard "hollered for staff," Robertson said,
"but no one came."
"I sodomized him all night," said Robertson, who was chained to the
witness stand. He had a nearly shaved head and a thin braided ponytail.
The four officers accused of setting up Dillard's rape are Decker, Sgt.
Dale Brakebill and correctional officers Anthony Sylva and Joe Sanchez.
The State Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case,
is attempting to show that Decker and the others purposely put Dillard
in the cell to punish him for striking a female guard at
another prison.
Decker's lawyer, Curtis Sisk, has said Decker was not at work the day
Dillard was moved.
After Dillard was brought to Robertson's cell, he banged on the door
and told two officers, including former officer Roscoe Pondexter, his life
was in danger.
"Pondexter started laughing like it was some kind of joke," Robertson
said. "They walked away."
Pondexter, who is immune from prosecution, has testified against the
four guards.
The assault occurred over two nights, during which time, the guards
didn't let the two out into the exercise yard, Robertson said. The day
after the second sexual assault, Dillard ran from the cell when the door
was opened and refused to return.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Gerald Lewis, representing Sylva,
asked Robertson whether there was a "dispute" between Dillard and the guards
putting him in the cell. Robertson said no. And defense lawyer Katharine
Hart asked Robertson whether he was "the Booty Bandit."
"That's another label you guys placed on me," Robertson said. "That's
the term I read in the paper."
About halfway through his testimony, Robertson balked at being a witness,
saying he was being "retaliated against" by the State Department of Corrections.
During the break, Assistant Attorney General Vernon Pierson spoke with
Robertson and promised he would personally get assurances of protection
from Department of Corrections Director Cal Terhune in Sacramento.
Robertson is doing life without parole and is housed at the maximum-security
housing unit at Pelican Bay State Prison.
Guard Testifies About Inmate's Rapes
Says He Feels No Compassion for Victim
Oct. 15, 1999
HANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- A former prison guard nicknamed "Bonecrusher"
testified Thursday that he feels no compassion for an inmate who was repeatedly
raped by a known sexual predator.
Roscoe Pondexter told jurors in the trial of four Corcoran State Prison
guards accused of setting up the rape that inmate Eddie Dillard was of
little consequence to him at the time.
Pondexter, testifying for the prosecution under a grant of immunity,
has repeatedly said that his fellow officers knew they were endangering
the 23-year-old Dillard when they left him in a cell with Wayne Robertson.
'It doesn't matter to me'
Prosecutors say the guards did it to punish Dillard for kicking a female
guard.
"If you thought Eddie Dillard was in peril, wouldn't you do something
to see he was released from the cell with Robertson?" asked defense lawyer
Katherine Heart during the second day of Pondexter's cross-examination.
"Probably not," said Pondexter after a long silence. "If he comes up
to me and says, 'I'm being raped,' or 'I'm being physically assaulted,'
I would act on that.
"But I have no compassion for Eddie Dillard, so it doesn't matter to
me that he's feeling all these things," he said.
Pondexter said it was his job to teach newly arrived inmates that Corcoran
State Prison was a place where the guards were in charge and wouldn't hesitate
to use violence to maintain order.
Used excessive force
Pondexter was fired from his job as a Corcoran guard after being accused
of using excessive force on inmates -- a practice that earned him the nickname
"Bonecrusher."
"I think he's angry at his employer and that's part of his impetus to
this," said defense lawyer Curtis Sisk during a break in the trial.
After two failed state investigations, Pondexter broke ranks and supported
Dillard's account in testimony to a special grand jury, which indicted
the guards last year on charges of aiding and abetting the rape.
Robert Decker, Dale Brakebill, Anthony Sylva and Joe Sanchez face up
to nine years in prison if convicted.
Corcoran Rapist Marked for Death at Pelican Bay, Tom Hayden Says Inmate allegedly was told to attack by prison guards
Pamela J. Podger, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, August 20, 1998
A burly inmate who was allegedly used by guards at Corcoran State Prison
to rape and beat other inmates has been placed where he could suffer brutal
retaliation, a state senator said yesterday.
Wayne Jerome Robertson, nicknamed the ``Booty Bandit'' for his history
of prison rapes, has been cleared for placement in the general population
at Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City.
``It is almost certain that he would be targeted for death,'' said
Senator Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, a vocal critic of the Department of
Corrections.
``He is sorry sack of s--, but you don't use him to rape a bunch of
prisoners and then throw him out on the yard to be slaughtered,'' Hayden
said. ``I just think if safety in prisons means anything, Robertson must
be isolated or steps have to be taken to prevent a predictable act of revenge.''
The situation is so laden with potential disaster, Hayden said, it
raises questions of whether the prison system is trying to silence Robertson.
Robertson's alleged cell-block crimes are a key element of what state
and federal investigators are probing. Whistle blowers claim that Corcoran
guards set up inmate fights, condoned violence, mistreated problem inmates
and then conspired to cover up the incidents. Guards at Corcoran, which
opened in 1988, have so far wounded 43 inmates and killed seven.
Hayden said he fears that Robertson, who was moved to Pelican Bay a
year ago, may be in jeopardy from the inmate culture of revenge. In testimony
before a joint legislative hearing in Sacramento, investigators said the
230-pound Robertson was given extra sack lunches and tennis shoes for meting
out punishment at the behest of guards at the maximum-security prison,
which is located in the San Joaquin Valley.
State corrections investigator John Harrison told lawmakers he heard
of a coverup attempt by Corcoran staff members, who condoned Robertson's
repeated rapes of Eddie Dillard, a 120-pound, first- time convict. The
state attorney general is conducting a criminal investigation into the
rapes.
Hayden questioned yesterday why Robinson was cleared for the main line
at Pelican Bay by prison officials.
``Was this just an administrative mistake?'' Hayden asked. ``Is he disposable?
I'm reminded of all kinds of cases, especially in foreign policy, where
officials utilize some lowlife guy for a squalid mission and then dump
him.
``The public should be aware that this man was encouraged by some guards
to beat and rape other prisoners. Robertson is a cog in a machine, a disposable
part of this process of cruel and unusual punishment inside the prisons.
Secondly, he is a potential witness . . . and if he is dead, his testimony
dies with him.''
The senator told Department of Corrections Director Cal Terhune of
his concerns
about Robertson on Tuesday, during the fifth day of joint legislative
hearings into crimes at Corcoran.
Asked whether he was aware of Robertson's placement in the general population,
where he will have contact with other inmates, Terhune told a reporter
that he did not know about it.
``No, I hadn't known about that,'' Terhune said. ``But believe me, he
can take care of himself.''
Tip Kindel, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said Terhune
promised yesterday to look into Robertson's placement, either at Pelican
Bay or at another state prison.
Robertson, a convicted murderer, is serving a life term without possibility
of parole. He has been in prison since 1961.
PRESS RELEASE: Rape Victim Dillard's federal lawsuit delayed indefinitely
pending Governor's approval of CDC guards' legal defense team
Date:
June 28, 2002
At 3:00 p.m., on Monday, July 1, 2002, in a
scheduled telephonic hearing with U.S. District Court Judge Anthony W.
Ishii, rape victim Eddie Dillard's attorneys will ask a fourth time for
the stay to be lifted on his civil lawsuit against the four California
Department of Corrections employees who conspired to place and keep Dillard
in a cell for three days with a recidivist cellie rapist twice Dillard's
size, and, thereafter, cover up their misconduct.
The lawsuit has been stymied for over seven
months because Governor Gray Davis' office has not signed contracts approving
the defense attorneys selected by the correctional officers.
Since he was raped in March 1993, Dillard has
completed his sentence, married, and started a family. He and his
wife have two sons, ages 5 and 2. But he also has been diagnosed
with post traumatic stress disorder. While his lawsuit remains open,
so do his scars.
In March 1993, Dillard was ordered into, and
left for three days in Wayne Robertson's cell. According to Robertson,
defendant Sergeant Robert Allen Decker, who was responsible for the cell
transfer, told Robertson to teach Dillard "how to do his time." Dillard
-- less than 120 lbs at the time -- wass transferred to Corcoran because
the first-time offender was accused of kicking a female guard. Robertson,
approximately 6'1/2" and a muscular 215 to 240 lbs, was described by a
Corcoran official as "a refrigerator with legs."
Serving a life sentence for killing, execution
style, a liquor store clerk during a robbery, Robertson also had an extremely
well-documented history as a sexual predator. In fact, the reason
he was transferred to the high security Corcoran facility was because,
in the summer before at another facility, he raped one cellmate, sexually
assaulted a second inmate and attacked an officer. Moreover, Robertson
had been disciplined at still another institution for assaulting no less
than the same person with whom he was celled with, Dillard. Dillard
has explained in prior testimony how he pleaded with defendant officer
Anthony J. Sylva not to place him in the cell with Robertson, explaining
the circumstances, their enemy status and Robertson's reputation.
According to Dillard, though, Sylva pushed him into the cell, with remarks
indicating that it was payback for a prior incident in which Dillard was
accused of kicking a female officer at Tehachapi in the shin.
Robertson testified before a Hanford grand
jury, with the same matter-of-factness as that he benchpresses 400 lbs,
how he beat Dillard then raped and sodomized him "all night." During
the second day in his cell, when Dillard tried to enlist the support of
defendant officer Joe Sanchez on the tier passing out meals, Sanchez responded,
"So you could hit a woman but you can't fight him back."
On the third night, after Dillard was able
to escape from the cell, correctional officers who gathered around him
joked how Dillard got his "doughnut glazed." Shortly thereafter,
a CDC doctor's order to have Dillard transferred to a local hospital for
a rape examination and treatment was mysteriously canceled.
The responding MTA (Medical Technical Assistant)
contends that she relayed the transfer orders to the Corcoran Security
Squad, and that someone from the Squad called her back canceling the order.
But the Security Squad never received the order.
The following summer at Corcoran, Robertson
raped three more cellmates, two of whom were, like Dillard, accused in
official records of being "staff assaulters." The incident reports
regarding two of those summer rapes have, assuming they ever existed, disappeared.
Dillard, without legal representation, filed
a lawsuit on his own behalf in January, 1994. His lawsuit drew little
attention until, July 6, 1998, when a newspaper reporter for the Los Angeles
Times, reporting on abuses at Corcoran Prison, Mark Arax, reported a former
corrections' officer concession that Dillard had been placed in Robertson's
cell with the expectation that he would be sexually assaulted.
In response, an administrative investigation
was opened and submitted to the State Attorney General's office.
In October 1999, after obtaining a grand jury indictment against four officers,
the Attorney General's Office prosecuted but failed to obtain a conviction
against the four correctional officers in Hanford, a small town predominantly
inhabited by Corcoran guards and their families.
In September 1998, in the related federal civil
lawsuit, the Department of Corrections withdrew its financial support of
the four defendants' attorney fees, notwithstanding that three of the defendants
continued to work for the CDC. Under state law, the CDC's withdrawal
of the correctional officers' defense took the CDC off the hook for any
judgment or settlement Dillard might have obtained. In court papers,
the CDC, argued that the withdraw of support was fair because its employees
engaged in misconduct that:
is neither a risk that "may fairly be regarded as typical or broadly
incidental" to the purpose and mission of CDC, nor is it a
foreseeable consequence of the business conducted by CDC.
[cite] Conversely, the conduct is so unusual and startling that it
would be patently unfair to include the loss resulting from it, here
the injuries sustained by Dillard, among the other costs of CDC's
enterprise.
In January, 2001, both the four Dillard defendants
and Eddie Dillard successfully challenged the CDC's withdrawal in state
court. In that proceeding, Dillard answered the CDC's claim that
guards tolerating or abetting rapes was an unforeseeable consequence of
CDC business with a summary of documents that Dillard's attorneys
obtained in discovery.
These documents demonstrated that, in every
year since Robertson was admitted into the CDC in 1981, the CDC had specific
knowledge that he committed batteries, sexual assaults and/or serious rules
violations. Still, he received more cellmates.
Often, the reports prepared by correctional officers were graphic.
One officer reported that Robertson, sporting a vaseline covered erection,
cut off the underwear of one of his cellmate victims with a razor blade.
Another reported witnessing Robertson tearing off the underwear of a cellmate
while threatening him with greater violence if he failed to submit.
Multiple times he has been caught in the act of sexually assaulting; multiple
times reported telling his cellmates to "fight or f---"; and multiple times
cellmates have left his cell bleeding and sometimes dripping with Robertson's
bodily fluids.
When Robertson was deprived of cellmates, according
to CDC reports, he manipulated guards, set fires to his cell, even wrote
appeals claiming that his constitutional right to a cellmate was being
denied. He has been repeatedly "written up" for having weapons (and
using them) and for covering the windows and lights in his cells.
In one instance, he feigned illness. When officers escorted him from his
cell, Robertson laughingly joked to other inmates on the tier, "I told
you I'd get my move, and tomorrow I'll be back . . . and I'll have a cellie!"
His confidence was justified. As late as 1998 -- when Dillard's access
to documents regarding Robertson ceases -- Robertson was still at it.
In March 2001, the CDC appealed the Hanford
Superior Court's Order that it provide a defense to the four Dillard defendants
(and, thereby, take financial responsibility for any compensatory, but
not necessarily punitive damages, awarded against the four in favor of
Dillard). But on the eve of oral argument, the CDC withdrew its appeal
and agreed to take responsibility for the correctional officers' defense
and a possible compensatory damages. Now the CDC is in the position
of paying for a defense of CDC employees in federal court who the CDC essentially
argued in state court were responsible for the harm Dillard suffered.
Meanwhile, Dillard's federal lawsuit has remained
moribund since March 2001, when the CDC first argued it should not be held
legally responsible. Since the CDC reversed its legal position in
December 2001, there have been three status conferences held in the federal
civil rights lawsuit. In each, the federal court judge has left the
stay in place because three of the four defendants have not had their selection
of attorneys confirmed by the Governor's Office.
Meanwhile, all Dillard can do is wait for the
stay to be lifted.
When asked about the delay, one of Dillard's
attorney's, Bastian, remarked, "Possible excuses I have heard are the Governor's
office is busy with the budget, they don't want a trial in an election
year, and this Governor's procedures for getting approvals are too ponderous.
Whatever the reason for the delay, it is inexcusable.
By Kerri Ginis -- The Fresno Bee
Published 5:30 a.m. PDT Sunday, December 30, 2001
The California Department of Corrections will defend four current and
former prison employees in an upcoming federal civil rights lawsuit filed
by a former Corcoran inmate.
An agreement approved this month by Gov. Gray Davis upholds an earlier
decision issued by a state trial court in Hanford that the Department of
Corrections must pay for a defense for the prison staffers.
The four are accused in a federal civil lawsuit of purposely placing
former Corcoran prisoner Eddie Dillard in a cell with a known rapist, Wayne
Robertson.
Robertson repeatedly raped and assaulted Dillard over three days in
March 1993.
Three of the defendants -- officers Robert Allan Decker, Anthony J.
Sylva and Joe Sanchez -- were acquitted in 1999 of setting up Dillard to
be raped for allegedly kicking an officer at another prison.
Also named in the lawsuit is Kathy Horton-Plant, a former medical technical
assistant who no longer is employed with the CDC.
When Dillard filed the federal civil rights lawsuit, the CDC intended
to represent the officers. But after an investigation into Dillard's allegations,
the state agency dropped its defense, claiming the officers had acted inappropriately.
"During investigations that were done, the CDC learned that the officers
did, in fact, do what Dillard alleged," said Deputy Attorney General David
Taglienti, who represented the CDC in its appeal. "They had either promoted,
encouraged or covered up the rape of inmate Eddie Dillard, and the consequence
of that was the CDC withdrawing its defense."
The correctional officers petitioned the state trial court, asking the
court to order the CDC to provide a defense for them.
Last spring the court ruled in favor of the officers. The CDC appealed,
but now that Davis has ruled in favor of the agreement, the CDC does not
plan to file any further appeals, Taglienti said.
The correctional officers are pleased that the CDC will foot the bill
for their defense, said Gary Messing, a lawyer with Carroll, Burdick and
McDonough, who represented the officers.
About the Writer
---------------------------
The Fresno Bee's Kerri Ginis can be reached at (559) 622-2417 or kginis@fresnobee.com
.
Eddie Dillard is taking a few classes, but mostly staying home in the
Los Angeles area helping to take care of two young children while his wife
works. Being "Mr. Mom," his lawyer says.
And Dillard is waiting. Waiting for his day in court, based on his
1994 civil lawsuit filed in federal court in which he accused guards and
others of putting him into a cell with a known rapist at Corcoran State
Prison.
Nearly nine years ago, Dillard was a skinny Corcoran State Prison inmate,
placed in the confines of the security housing unit for making a big mistake
at another prison -- he kicked a female officer in the shin and thus earned
a reputation as "a loudmouth staff assaulter."
Dillard, then 23, was serving a 10-year term. He was a 5-foot-7, 118-pound
Los Angeles gang-banger convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and robbery.
First placed in Calipatria State Prison, he was transferred to Corcoran
after the kicking incident.
Dillard was placed into the cell of 6-foot-3, 220-pound Wayne Robertson,
tagged as "the Booty Bandit" for his sexual attacks on other inmates.
It wasn't long before Dillard became another victim.
In January 1994, he filed suit against prison officials and the guards
who placed him into the cell with Robertson. He has been waiting since
then for the case to come to trial, delayed time and again by behind-the-scenes
legal battles that now fill six volumes in the federal court clerk's office
in Fresno.
Four guards went on trial in 1999 on criminal charges in the Dillard
case and were acquitted by a Hanford jury that deliberated over parts of
three days. After the verdicts, the jury foreman said the panel concluded
there was "just too much reasonable doubt" to convict the officers of deliberately
placing Dillard in the cell with Robertson.
Dillard had accused the guards of laughing at his protests about being
placed in the cell with Robertson. He was attacked twice by the bigger
man before he was able to receive help.
Robertson, serving life without parole for murder and other crimes,
was a known predator, according to a prosecutor at the guards' criminal
trial, and had a prison record "dating back well over a decade chronicling
numerous incidents of sexual assault against fellow inmates, as well as
his reputation for selecting younger, smaller, vulnerable inmates as prey."
The California Department of Corrections had refused to pay for the
guards' defense in the criminal trial after conducting an investigation
of the Dillard incident and concluding that some correctional officers
engaged in a "selective cover-up of excessive force."
However, more recently, a Hanford judge ruled that the CDC was responsible
for the guards' legal fees for the civil lawsuit and Gov. Davis approved
a settlement calling for the department to defend four current and former
prison employees still named as defendants.
Three of the officers named in the civil suit -- Robert Allan Decker,
Anthony J. Sylva and Joe Sanchez -- were acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing
during the trial in Kings County. Also named in the lawsuit is Kathy Horton-Plant,
a former medical technical assistant who no longer is employed with CDC.
Dillard's lawyer, Robert L. Bastian Jr. of Los Angeles, said the decision
by the governor also helps Dillard because if a jury were to rule in favor
of the former inmate, the CDC could be held responsible for any compensatory
damages.
The jury trial before U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii had been
scheduled for Jan. 8, but the date was vacated while the CDC and guards
battled over who would pay the legal fees. Now, Bastian says, a new trial
date will be set, probably in the spring.
In the meantime, the lawyer says, Dillard is getting on with his life,
although "he still suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome" from the
attacks by Robertson.
Dillard served his prison term and has since married and is the father
of two young sons, Bastian said. "He's not working; he's Mr. Mom, staying
home taking care of the children and going to school."
There is still a chance the case could be settled. "I imagine a settlement
conference will be set and we'll test the waters," Bastian said, "to see
if there is a possibility of a meeting of the minds."
In a more notorious case, the state paid $825,000 to end a civil lawsuit
brought by the family of inmate Preston Tate, killed by a guard in 1994.
That case also spurred a criminal trial for eight Corcoran guards who were
acquitted by a federal court jury in Fresno.
In yet another wrongful-death case concluded in October, the family
of James Kevin Mahoney Jr., who was beaten to death by another inmate on
a Corcoran exercise yard in 1999, accepted a $525,000 settlement offer
from the state.
Three of four Corcoran officers named in lawsuit over inmate's rape.
By Jerry Bier And Lewis Griswold
The Fresno Bee
(Published November 10, 1999)
The legal problems aren't over for three of the four Corcoran State
Prison guards who were acquitted this week of criminal charges involving
the rape of inmate Eddie Dillard.
Dillard's 5-year-old civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Fresno
is still alive.
In it, the former Corcoran inmate raises the same allegations that a
Kings County Superior Court jury acquitted the correctional officers of
Monday in Hanford.
And while the acquitted guards hailed the verdict as vindication for
themselves and the beleaguered maximum-security prison, the civil lawsuit
remains, as does a federal criminal prosecution against eight other correctional
officers accused of staging inmate fights for sport.
Sgts. Robert Decker, 41, and Dale Brakebill, 34, and officers Anthony
Sylva, 36, and Joe Sanchez, 38, were found innocent Monday by a jury, which
deliberated over parts of three days.
The four correctional officers, who have been on paid administrative
leave, can now go back to work.
"The problem these guys now have is the notoriety, the not-guilty verdicts
notwithstanding. Inmates heard about these things, and you become a target,"
said Curtis Sisk, the lawyer for Decker. "You don't know what gang member
wants to make a name for themselves."
The jury foreman said its members had "gone over everything" and reviewed
all the documents presented and in the end concluded there was "just too
much reasonable doubt" to convict the officers.
"There just wasn't enough evidence that supported what prosecutor was
trying to prove," said the foreman, who declined to give his name.
Brakebill called the verdict a vindication for the guards, the prison
and the state Department of Corrections.
However, all of the guards but Brakebill are defendants in the civil
lawsuit, which also names Kathy M. Horton, a medical technical assistant
at the prison who examined Dillard after his alleged sexual attack by inmate
Wayne Robertson.
In his civil suit, Dillard, who is out of prison and living in Los Angeles,
said he was placed in Robertson's cell soon after he was transferred from
Calipatria State Prison, despite his protests that the two were enemies.
Dillard had accepted an unpublished amount of money to settle the civil
suit, according to the case file in federal court, then apparently changed
his mind.
Kenneth D. Ogrin, a Sherman Oaks lawyer representing Dillard in the
civil case, did not return telephone calls Tuesday, nor did lawyers for
the guards and Horton.
The suit states that Dillard, 29, is a sickle cell anemia victim who
suffers daily from varying complications associated with the disease, including
physical weakness and frequent kidney problems.
"The fact that Dillard weighs a little more than 129 pounds, is well
under 6 feet tall, sickly and physically weak, establishes that he is at
severe risk of physical injury in a level-4 prison wherein 97% of all prisoners
are far bigger, stronger, healthier and meaner, " the suit states.
The officers, according to the suit, have a propensity, while purporting
to act under color of law, "for brutality, bigotry, dishonesty, deception,
abuse of authority, harassment, false arrest, excessive, unnecessary and
unreasonable force and violence" against people in their custody and are
"wholly unfit to serve as sworn peace officers."
The national media spotlight focused intently on Corcoran's problems
with the shooting death of inmate Preston Tate more than five years ago.
Tate's death prompted a federal grand jury inquiry that concluded last
year with the indictment of eight guards on charges they had staged inmate
fights at Corcoran for blood sport.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan B. Conklin, who is prosecuting the
federal case, could not be reached to comment.
Four of those guards in the federal case are charged in the death of
Tate, who was shot during an inmate fight in the Security Housing Unit
on April 2, 1994.
Tate's parents sued in Fresno's federal court and won an $825,000 settlement.
Tate's death, probably more than any other incident, focused national
attention on what could be California's most troubled prison.
Other problems with inmate abuse and reprisals against whistle-blowers
have come to public attention in recent years.
Recently, a former prison doctor filed a lawsuit against the prison,
charging that the administration fired him after he complained about abusive
treatment of inmates who were made to stand on hot concrete as punishment.
Inmates sustained third-degree burns on their heels, said Dr. Jack Wilkinson.
In June, the corrections department agreed to pay former guard Richard
Caruso $1.7 million, halt any disciplinary actions and remove a negative
mark on his personnel records. Caruso had sued the department, claiming
he was forced out of his job after he alerted federal authorities to institutional
cover-ups of inmate abuse at Corcoran.
Three of four Corcoran officers named in lawsuit over inmate's rape.
By Jerry Bier And Lewis Griswold
The Fresno Bee
(Published November 10, 1999)
The legal problems aren't over for three of the four Corcoran State
Prison guards who were acquitted this week of criminal charges involving
the rape of inmate Eddie Dillard.
Dillard's 5-year-old civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Fresno
is still alive.
In it, the former Corcoran inmate raises the same allegations that a
Kings County Superior Court jury acquitted the correctional officers of
Monday in Hanford.
And while the acquitted guards hailed the verdict as vindication for
themselves and the beleaguered maximum-security prison, the civil lawsuit
remains, as does a federal criminal prosecution against eight other correctional
officers accused of staging inmate fights for sport.
Sgts. Robert Decker, 41, and Dale Brakebill, 34, and officers Anthony
Sylva, 36, and Joe Sanchez, 38, were found innocent Monday by a jury, which
deliberated over parts of three days.
The four correctional officers, who have been on paid administrative
leave, can now go back to work.
"The problem these guys now have is the notoriety, the not-guilty verdicts
notwithstanding. Inmates heard about these things, and you become a target,"
said Curtis Sisk, the lawyer for Decker. "You don't know what gang member
wants to make a name for themselves."
The jury foreman said its members had "gone over everything" and reviewed
all the documents presented and in the end concluded there was "just too
much reasonable doubt" to convict the officers.
"There just wasn't enough evidence that supported what prosecutor was
trying to prove," said the foreman, who declined to give his name.
Brakebill called the verdict a vindication for the guards, the prison
and the state Department of Corrections.
However, all of the guards but Brakebill are defendants in the civil
lawsuit, which also names Kathy M. Horton, a medical technical assistant
at the prison who examined Dillard after his alleged sexual attack by inmate
Wayne Robertson.
In his civil suit, Dillard, who is out of prison and living in Los Angeles,
said he was placed in Robertson's cell soon after he was transferred from
Calipatria State Prison, despite his protests that the two were enemies.
Dillard had accepted an unpublished amount of money to settle the civil
suit, according to the case file in federal court, then apparently changed
his mind.
Kenneth D. Ogrin, a Sherman Oaks lawyer representing Dillard in the
civil case, did not return telephone calls Tuesday, nor did lawyers for
the guards and Horton.
The suit states that Dillard, 29, is a sickle cell anemia victim who
suffers daily from varying complications associated with the disease, including
physical weakness and frequent kidney problems.
"The fact that Dillard weighs a little more than 129 pounds, is well
under 6 feet tall, sickly and physically weak, establishes that he is at
severe risk of physical injury in a level-4 prison wherein 97% of all prisoners
are far bigger, stronger, healthier and meaner, " the suit states.
The officers, according to the suit, have a propensity, while purporting
to act under color of law, "for brutality, bigotry, dishonesty, deception,
abuse of authority, harassment, false arrest, excessive, unnecessary and
unreasonable force and violence" against people in their custody and are
"wholly unfit to serve as sworn peace officers."
The national media spotlight focused intently on Corcoran's problems
with the shooting death of inmate Preston Tate more than five years ago.
Tate's death prompted a federal grand jury inquiry that concluded last
year with the indictment of eight guards on charges they had staged inmate
fights at Corcoran for blood sport.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan B. Conklin, who is prosecuting the
federal case, could not be reached to comment.
Four of those guards in the federal case are charged in the death of
Tate, who was shot during an inmate fight in the Security Housing Unit
on April 2, 1994.
Tate's parents sued in Fresno's federal court and won an $825,000 settlement.
Tate's death, probably more than any other incident, focused national
attention on what could be California's most troubled prison.
Other problems with inmate abuse and reprisals against whistle-blowers
have come to public attention in recent years.
Recently, a former prison doctor filed a lawsuit against the prison,
charging that the administration fired him after he complained about abusive
treatment of inmates who were made to stand on hot concrete as punishment.
Inmates sustained third-degree burns on their heels, said Dr. Jack Wilkinson.
In June, the corrections department agreed to pay former guard Richard
Caruso $1.7 million, halt any disciplinary actions and remove a negative
mark on his personnel records. Caruso had sued the department, claiming
he was forced out of his job after he alerted federal authorities to institutional
cover-ups of inmate abuse at Corcoran.
(Published November 8, 1999)
HANFORD - A Kings County jury acquitted this afternoon four Corcoran
State Prison correctional officers of charges that they aided and abetted
the rape of an inmate by placing him in a cell with another inmate who
was a known sexual predator.
After a six-week trial in Kings County Superior Court, the 12-member
jury found Sgts. Robert Allan Decker, 41, Dale Shawn Brakebill, 34, and
officers Anthony Sylva, 36, and Joe Sanchez, 38, not guilty of setting
up the 1993 rape of inmate Eddie Dillard. The jury reached its verdict
before the end of its third day of deliberations.
'I am vindicated,' said a jubilant Brakebill outside the courthouse
with his wife Carole and his parents by his side. 'Mr. Decker, Mr. Sanchez
and Mr. Sylva are vindicated. The entire Department of Corrections is vindicated,
and so is Corcoran State Prison.
'I've put my career on hold for more than a year because of allegations
of two inmates and a disgruntled former employee. Now I will vindicate
myself by going back to work.'
Brakebill and his colleagues were indicted by a Kings County grand jury
last year, four years after former Corcoran inmate Eddie Dillard alleged
the four guards had purposefully placed him in a cell with Wayne 'Booty
Bandit' Robertson in retaliation for assaulting a female guard while he
was at Tehachapi State Prison. The alleged rape occurred over two days
at the Security Housing Unit at Corcoran, where inmates who attack guards
and commit other prison violations are sent for punishment.
Dillard and Robertson were both star witnesses for the prosecution.
The jury foreman, who did not give his name, said the jury 'just kept
coming up with a whole lot of doubt.'
The state Attorney General's office, which prosecuted the four guards,
expressed its disappointment in today's verdict.
'This was a difficult case,' said State Deputy Attorney General Vernon
Pierson. 'If your best witnesses are convicted felons who don't want to
get involved in the first place, it makes it tough. But we wouldn't have
brought this case if we didn't have an abiding conviction that these were
guilty defendants.'
Despite the four acquittals, Pierson called the case a 'significant
accomplishment' because the state was able to investigate a four-year-old
case and bring it to trial.
'In the California Department of Corrections today, if there is misconduct,
it will be investigated,'' Pierson said. 'That wasn't the case a few years
ago.'
State will pay guards' legal expenses in prison rape lawsuit
By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
Published 4:15 p.m. PST Thursday, Dec. 13, 2001
SACRAMENTO (AP) - The California Department of Corrections said Thursday
it will pay for the legal defense of three current correctional officers
and one former employee accused in a pending federal civil rights lawsuit.The
guards are accused of setting up the rape of inmate Eddie Dillard by leaving
him in the cell of a known sexual predator, Wayne Robertson.The decision
means the state would pay any compensatory damages from the federal suit,
said Dillard's attorney, Robert L. Bastian Jr., though the four may be
personally liable for any punitive damages.The agreement comes after a
state court in Hanford ruled the department is legally required to defend
the Corcoran State Prison guards.
The state is dropping its appeal, which had been set for a hearing later
this month.The 118-pound Dillard alleges he was repeatedly raped over two
days in March 1993 by Robertson, a 6-3, 230-pound convicted murderer known
as the "Booty Bandit."However, a Kings County Superior Court jury acquitted
four guards in 1999 of aiding and abetting sodomy in concert. Three of
the four guards - Robert Allan Decker, Joe Sanchez and Anthony J. Sylva
- and a fourth former employee, Kathy HHorton-Plant, are named in the federal
civil rights lawsuit awaiting a January 8 hearing in U.S. District Court
in Fresno.The suit is expected to go to trial next spring.
(11-06) 00:55 EST
HANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- Jurors will resume deliberations Monday in
the trial of four Corcoran State Prison guards accused of setting up an
inmate to be raped by his cell mate.
The jury deliberated all day Friday, and at the end of the day asked
Kings County Superior Court Judge Louis F. Bissig to clarify the definition
of the word ``perpetrator.''
Bissig said he would respond to the jury's question on Monday.
Prosecutors say the guards set up the rapes of Eddie Dillard over three
days in March 1993 to punish him for kicking a female guard at another
prison and to ``teach him how to do his time.''
Sgts. Robert Decker, 41, and Dale Brakebill, 34, and officers Anthony
Sylva, 36, and Joe Sanchez, 38, are charged with aiding and abetting sodomy.
They face up to nine years in prison if convicted.
