2 O.C. Deputies Charged in Beating of Jail Inmate : Crime: They are accused of being drunk, assaulting and threatening to hang a prisoner in Maywood.

Two Orange County sheriff’s deputies and a former Maywood police officer were charged Friday with beating a Maywood jail inmate into unconsciousness while they were off-duty and drunk after attending a bachelor party.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office filed six felony counts against Sheriff’s Deputies Ivan Budiselich, 26, and John Rice, 25, and Michael A. Elliott, 31, who was forced to resign from the Maywood police force over the incident.

Each is accused of beating and threatening to hang Marino D. Martillo of Huntington Park in March. The incident, prosecutors said, occurred shortly after the officers left a colleague’s bachelor party and went to the Maywood department in a chauffeur-driven limousine.

“All were under the influence of alcohol, and they entered the police station so they could use the intoxilizer machine in order to determine which one of them was the most intoxicated,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey D. Oscodar, who is handling the case.

Budiselich, Elliott and Rice each were charged with one count of “assault under color of authority” and one count of assault and battery with serious bodily injury.

Also filed were additional special allegations of great bodily injury, which could add up to three years to their sentences if convicted.

Assault under color of authority, which can be filed only against law enforcement officers, carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison. The assault and battery charge carries a maximum of four years in prison.

The officers are scheduled to surrender Monday at their arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court. Oscodar said he will recommend bail of $30,000 each.

Paul DiPasquale, an attorney representing Rice and Budiselich, declined to comment on the charges, saying he had not yet reviewed the case. According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the two deputies have been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of their criminal case and an internal affairs investigation.

Martin Geragos, Elliott’s lawyer, said the allegations are unfounded and that his client would ultimately be vindicated. “Mike eagerly awaits the chance to clear his name,” Geragos said.

Prosecutors allege that the officers showed up at the Maywood station about 2 a.m. on March 23 to visit friends and play with the department’s breathalizer, which is used to determine if someone is legally drunk.

According to the district attorney, Elliott, Budiselich and Rice had been out drinking and celebrating with a second Maywood officer, Daniel Vasquez, who was getting married the next day.

At the station, Oscodar said, Officer John Hoglund told the defendants that he had arrested a man in a red T-shirt who had argued with him and forced him into a chase in which his police car was damaged.

The defendants, prosecutors charge, posed as district attorney’s investigators, entered the jail to find the inmate in the red T-shirt and subsequently located Martillo, who had been jailed on outstanding traffic warrants.

After telling Martillo’s cellmate to bury his head under a pillow, the officers purportedly choked, kicked and hit Martillo until he was unconscious. One officer, Martillo alleged, pinned him to his bunk and said that if he did not stop complaining and harassing the officers, they would “hang me and make it look like a suicide.”

Prosecutors allege that the attack continued for at least five minutes until it was broken up by a dispatcher, who feared that she could get into trouble for letting the officers into the cellblock.

Officer Vasquez went to the station with the defendants but was not charged. Oscodar said the officer became ill from drinking and retired to a restroom while the alleged assault was taking place.

It was later determined that Martillo, although wearing a red T-shirt, was not the man Hoglund had arrested. That man had put on another inmate’s sweat shirt, which covered up his red T-shirt, Oscodar said.

According to the victim’s doctor and a physician hired by the prosecution, Martillo, 30, now suffers from blurred vision, hearing loss and dizziness as a result of the attack.

“These guys have done a lot to me,” said Martillo, who works at Salute Auto Parts in Bellflower. “I don’t know how all these guys got into law enforcement in the first place or why they have been allowed to stay. There are so many complaints against them, it is ridiculous.”

Rice, Budiselich and Elliott first came under investigation in October, 1988, after they were involved in a brawl at the Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood, a popular rock club on the Sunset Strip. Four club employees were injured in the melee, but none of the officers, who were off-duty, were charged with any offenses.

Elliott, a former deputy, joined the Maywood force last year after he was fired from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department because of the escape of five prisoners from the Orange County Jail on Nov. 20, 1988. He had been assigned to supervise a roof exercise area from which the prisoners fled.

In September, 1989, his firing was rescinded, and Elliott was allowed to resign voluntarily with $8,000 in back pay to settle an accusation of unfairness during his disciplinary hearings.

The American Civil Liberties Union also had named Elliott and Rice in complaints alleging that they had used excessive force. None of those brutality allegations have been sustained, however.

“We are very happy that charges have finally been filed,” said Mario F. Vazquez, Martillo’s attorney. “Fortunately, this was the type of incident that was so glaring and obvious that the authorities had to do something about it. My client was in jail and did not provoke anything.”