No Indictments Over Inmate’s Choking Death : Jails: Federal decision follows county reviews that cleared the six deputies involved.

Federal prosecutors have decided not to indict six San Diego County deputy sheriffs involved in the choking death of a jail inmate, a lawyer for the man’s family said Wednesday.

Despite a lengthy investigation into the January, 1988, death of Albert Varela, 28, who was choked in a fight with deputies at the County Jail downtown, prosecutors have opted against pursuing criminal charges against the six deputies, attorney J. Manuel (Manny) Sanchez said.

The federal investigation follows earlier reviews by the Sheriff’s Department and county district attorney that cleared the deputies of criminal wrongdoing.

Varela’s death was among the first in a string of complaints in 1988 about beatings and abuses by sheriff’s deputies in all six county jails. Last year, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI decided not to pursue allegations of civil rights violations in 70 individual complaints of inmates being abused by deputies, but they continued to investigate the Varela case.

The death also touched off sharp criticism of the Sheriff’s Department by community leaders, particularly from San Diego’s Latino community, where some rights activists charged that Latinos were being unduly abused by law enforcement officers.

Varela’s father, Cruz Varela, 64, of Lakeside, a General Dynamics missile-building mechanic, said Wednesday he was disappointed and frustrated.

“I feel it’s kind of political,” he said. “We’re small people down here. We probably don’t have the money, that’s the main thing, to put in the right places.

“That seems to be the whole thing, I hear,” Varela said. “If you’ve got money, your name sits up there high, they sit up and listen to you. But we happen to be a minority. That didn’t help our cause very much. I definitely don’t feel we got a fair shake” in the legal system.

Court records identify the six deputies as Roy DeVault (who has since left the department to attend college), Carlos Rodriguez, Jon Ellis, Ronald K. Brown, J. J. Rodi and S. T. Riley.

Albert Varela was arrested Jan. 22, 1988, after he allegedly violated a court order to stay away from his family because of past temper tantrums. When police arrived, he asked to be taken to the downtown jail.

According to the district attorney’s investigation, a fight broke out while Varela was being booked. The fight began when Rodriguez “threw Varela’s clothes to him, and Varela, in turn, threw them at Deputy Rodriguez.”

A fight ensued, and the five other deputies tried to help Rodriguez subdue Varela, who was 6-foot-1 and weighed 286 pounds. DeVault applied a carotid restraint hold on Varela’s neck while the other inmates kept him off balance, the district attorney found, and Varela eventually fell face down on the floor.

With blood coming out of his nose, Varela was handcuffed and dragged by his legs--with his chin scraping the floor--and placed inside a padded safety cell, where his vital signs were examined and found to be weak, the district attorney said. He was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The formal announcement of the federal investigation’s result is contained in a letter that Sanchez said was in the mail. He said government sources told him Wednesday that the letter indicates there will be no federal prosecution.

“Every indication up to now has been that the facts and evidence were clear--that the violation of this man’s civil rights, the result of his death, was criminal in nature,” Sanchez said.

He added: “It’s a long time to come to this juncture, and I believe the Varela family is deeply affected by it. Their sense of justice is that the responsible persons should be made accountable for the death of their son, and are not.”

Sanchez also said a decision to pursue prosecution could have sent a message: “If there’s a message out there, it’s that you’ve got to stop these things. Otherwise, the death of a guy like Varela is going to happen again. Now the message is, ‘We can get away with it, guys.’ ”

Stephen P. Clark, the assistant U.S. attorney who specializes in civil rights investigations and who handled the grand jury investigation in the Varela death, declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

Sheriff John Duffy could not be reached for comment. Neither could various lawyers involved in the case.

The grand jury targeted the six deputies earlier this year. In letters mailed to the deputy sheriffs in April, the U.S. attorney’s office--which was believed to be presenting the case in May to the grand jury for possible indictments--invited the deputies to testify about Varela’s death.

It is not clear whether any of the six deputies agreed to testify. In May, it was believed that none of the six had come forward.

The federal investigation, meanwhile, shut down action in an $8-million civil lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court by the Varela family against the deputies, Duffy and the county.

According to court records, the deputies were invoking their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination in the civil case by refusing to provide information about Varela’s death until after the federal probe had concluded.

Exactly two years ago, the district attorney’s office declined to hold any of the deputies criminally liable for the death, saying Varela died when his heart stopped. There was “no evidence” the chokehold blocked Varela’s airway, the office said.

However, county prosecutors did chastise the deputies for dragging Varela across the floor. The civil lawsuit, which the Varela family filed in October, 1988, alleged that the deputies were engaged in “ultra-hazardous and dangerous activity” when they used the carotid hold on Varela’s throat.

The case was working its way toward a trial when attorneys abruptly advised the court last year that the deputies did not want to take part in pretrial discovery, the process through which both sides exchange information about the case. The lawyers said the deputies feared that any information they provided in the suit could be used against them in the federal probe. A status hearing in the civil case is set for Oct. 19, court records indicate.