Frame Hinted in Former Officers’ Beating Trial

Defense attorneys for two former Orange County sheriff’s deputies and a former Maywood police officer on trial in the beating of a Maywood Jail inmate contended Wednesday that their clients might have been framed.

Martin Geragos, the lawyer for former Maywood officer Michael A. Elliott, 31, charged in court that a police sergeant had a grudge against Elliott for filing a grievance against him and became part of a conspiracy to frame Elliott for the beating.

Ellott and former deputies Ivan Budiselich, 26, and John Rice, 25, are accused of beating Marino D. Martillo, 30, of Huntington Park on March 23, 1990.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey D. Oscodar, the prosecutor, alleges that the officers went to the Maywood Police Station about 2 a.m. that day to visit friends and play with the station’s Breathalyzer, which is used to determine if someone is legally drunk.

According to earlier testimony in the case, Elliott, Budiselich and Rice had been drinking and celebrating with a second Maywood officer, Daniel Vasquez, who was getting married the next day.

Vasquez testified that they had been riding around in a chauffeur-driven limousine--a kind of roving bachelor party. He recalled that he was so drunk he saw everything “somewhat through a haze” and, after arriving at the police station, became sick and had to retire to a bathroom.

Officer John Hoglund testified that he talked with the defendants at the station and told Elliott that he had arrested a man in a red T-shirt who scuffled with him and forced him into a chase in which his police car was damaged.

Shortly thereafter, Elliott, Rice and Budiselich entered the station’s cellblock and singled out a prisoner, according to Carolyn Lowers, a clerk-dispatcher who watched parts of the incident on the video screen of a jail security monitor.

Lowers told the court that she saw Elliott slapping a prisoner. It turned out to be Martillo, who was in jail on traffic warrants and wearing a red shirt similar to the one on the man Hoglund arrested.

Each defendant is charged with one count of assault under color of authority and one count of assault and battery with serious bodily injury. They also face additional special allegations of great bodily injury, which could add up to three years on 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. Four years in prison is the maximum sentence for assault and battery.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department fired Rice and Budiselich last fall after an internal affairs investigation of the incident. Elliott was forced to resign from the Maywood department.

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

Geragos, the attorney for Elliott, said the case “was revenge to get my client. They lied about a beating. There was no jail beating. The so-called victim has been to numerous doctors. they all say nothing is wrong with him.”

Geragos presented the court with a grievance letter signed by nine members of the Maywood Police Officers Assn., including Elliott. The letter listed a host of complaints about Sgt. Edward Robison.

But Robison testified that he was never called upon to defend himself and that he only had to respond to the department about one aspect of the grievance.