The State - News from Aug. 14, 1988

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking that Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates be found in contempt for the alleged beatings of inmates at the county jail. In papers filed in the federal district court in Santa Ana, the ACLU cited the testimony of Jack Joseph Donaldson, 40, a jail barber who is serving a two-year sentence for petty theft and for being under the influence of heroin. Donaldson said he has witnessed 10 or 12 inmates being physically abused by deputies in the rubber room, the name given to padded cells at the main men’s jail in Santa Ana. ACLU attorney Richard P. Herman also presented a prisoner’s declaration that fellow inmate Robert J. Orosco, 28, of La Puente, was refused medical attention before his death at the jail Tuesday. The inmate said in a sworn statement that Orosco was suffering from “severe drug withdrawals.” Gates said he was unaware of the new allegations filed by the ACLU.