Federal prosecutors told a jury Tuesday that three sheriff’s deputies beat a jail visitor and then falsified reports to cover it up, but defense attorneys countered that the government’s witnesses are liars and the alleged victim actually started and escalated the fight.
Los Angeles County sheriff‘s Sgt. Eric Gonzalez and deputies Sussie Ayala and Fernando Luviano are charged with assaulting Gabriel Carrillo on Feb. 26, 2011, after guards found him carrying a cell phone in the waiting area, a violation of jail regulations.
In her opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lizabeth Rhodes said Carrillo “mouthed off” to jail guards, angering them after they handcuffed both hands behind his back to begin booking him for the misdemeanor cell phone offense.
Deputies led Carrillo into a windowless break room, where there were no cameras, and pushed him against a refrigerator, Rhodes alleged.
The prosecutor said Carrillo — a 27-year-old forklift operator from Bellflower who had come to the lockup with his girlfriend to visit his jailed brother — allegedly baited deputies by saying, “If I weren’t in handcuffs, it would be a different story.”
At that point, a deputy — who has pleaded guilty in the case — said, “I wonder how tough this guy would be if he weren’t in handcuffs,” Rhodes told the federal jury.
“That was a question that would never be answered, because Mr. Carrillo was never not in handcuffs,” Rhodes said, showing jurors a photo of Carrillo’s beaten and bloody face.
Asking the jury to find the defendants guilty of four federal counts, including conspiracy and deprivation of rights under color of law, Rhodes said Ayala and Luviano and other deputies “hit, punched, jabbed and struck Mr. Carrillo under the watchful eye of their sergeant.”
Later, the prosecutor contends, Gonzalez sent a joking text message to a colleague in another sheriff’s department unit that included the photo of the beaten face of Carrillo, along with a shot of the equally bloodied face of Carrillo’s brother, Robert.
Rhodes said the sergeant’s message read: “Looks like we did a better job. Where’s my beer?”
Carrillo, Rhodes told the panel, “walked in as a visitor, and left, bloodied and on a gurney.”
Gonzalez’s attorney, Joseph Avrahamy, told jurors that Carrillo came into the jail visiting center that day with an “attitude,” and when deputies uncuffed one of his hands to fingerprint him, Carrillo “immediately swung his left elbow to assault the officers.”
Carrillo continued to escalate the incident, becoming “very violent … kicking and spitting” in an attempt to assault Luviano and others, causing the defendants to respond to the “chaotic” situation, Avrahamy said.
Avrahamy said his client had no time to fabricate his initial report and, instead, “did what he was supposed to do — report the use of force to his supervisor.”
The attorney told the jury that “at the end of this case, you’ll come to the conclusion” that what was written in the deputies’ reports “accurately” portrayed the Carrillo incident, “and the government did not meet its burden of proof.”
Patrick Smith, representing Ayala, said prosecutors “will not be able to prove that Gabriel Carrillo was handcuffed in the way they say.”
Each prosecution witness expected to testify — including former jail deputy Pantamitr Zunggeemoge, who pleaded guilty previously to a misdemeanor charge in the case — will tell “nothing but lies” on the stand, Smith told the panel.
Any violence carried out against Carrillo was done “appropriately” and “within the law,” Smith said.
“When you listen to the lies … you’ll find that Sussie Ayala is nor guilty,” he said.
Bernard Rosen, Luviano’s lawyer, told jurors that Carrillo instigated the violence within a highly charged and dangerous jail environment that was “not the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.”
The trial is expected last until the end of the week.
In a civil rights lawsuit, Carrillo said he blacked out after he was assaulted and pepper-sprayed by deputies. The county paid $1.2 million last year to settle the suit.
As part of a wide-ranging federal probe into use-of-force and inmate abuse allegations at county jails, prosecutors in 2013 brought charges against the three defendants, along with jail deputies Zunggeemoge and Noel Womack, stemming from several alleged incidents of abuse.
However, after Zunggeemoge and Womack pleaded guilty, prosecutors revised their case, narrowing it down to include only Carrillo’s allegations.
As part of their plea deals, Zunggeemoge and Womack agreed that, if called on, they will testify against their former colleagues in the current trial.
Gonzalez, Ayala and Luviano face up to 40 years in federal prison if convicted of all charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Ayala and Luviano are on leave from the department pending the outcome of the trial. Gonzalez’s work status was not immediately available.
— City News Service