Three Colorado prison officers - members of the so-called Cowboys - were sentenced to federal prison Friday for beating inmates.
Denver U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel sentenced Mike LaVallee and Rod Schultz to 41 months each, and Robert Verbickas to 30 months.
The judge gave all three slightly shortened sentences because they will be in special danger in the prison system where they once were officers.
LaVallee, the only one of the three who made a statement in court, wept as he told Daniel he never hurt Pedro Castillo, the inmate he was convicted of beating.
Another prison officer testified that LaVallee hurt Castillo.
Daniel granted a further sentence reduction because conditions at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, where the officers worked in the late 1990s, were unusually dangerous, even for a prison. The facility was overcrowded and, newly opened, was given the worst inmates from other U.S. prisons. Riots had occurred, and so many prisoners needed either discipline or protection from other prisoners that the special housing unit had to be doubled in size.
The sentences were slightly increased, on the other hand, because the officers were public officials and the inmates were vulnerable and restrained.
The judge said the inmates' injuries were minor and required treatment only at the prison infirmary.
All three former officers already have spent about five months in the Jefferson County Jail awaiting sentencing. That reduces the time still to be served by LaVallee and Schultz to three years and Verbickas' time to two years and a month.
Daniel ordered the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to get medical attention for Verbickas, who suffers from migraine headaches and a bad knee and wasn't allowed to take medications for them in jail.
Prosecutor Mark Blumberg of the U.S. Justice Department's Washington, D.C., headquarters argued against any sentence reductions. He sought sentences of up to 63 months, or more than five years.
After a two-month trial, a federal jury convicted LaVallee and Schultz in June of conspiring to deprive inmates of their civil rights and one charge each of injuring a specific inmate. The jury convicted Verbickas of one charge of injuring an inmate.
The jurors acquitted four other officers.
All seven were accused of brutalizing inmates and lying about it. The group of officers allegedly called itself "The Cowboys" in imitation of the naming of inmate gangs.