|
|
| Prison officers back in court for civil trial of alleged rape setup |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 09/29/2003 |
|
One of California's toughest prisons returned to the spotlight when three officers 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, officers set up his rapes by convicted murderer Wayne Robertson over two days in March 1993 to punish him for kicking a female officer 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 officers 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 officers left him in his cell in 1993. Robertson testified that the officers intentionally put Dillard in his cell. Former Corcoran prison officer 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 officers 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." |
advertise
|
privacy policy
|
add URL
|
about us
|
terms/disclaimer
|
contact us
|
join our team
|
help
Comments:
No comments have been posted for this article.
Login to let us know what you think