3 Deputies Hurt in Broderick Jail Fight, Officials Say

La Jolla socialite Betty Broderick, scheduled in two weeks to go to trial again on charges of killing her ex-husband and his new wife, fought with deputies earlier this week, injuring three of them, then smeared her own feces around a cell, officials said.

The guards’ injuries were slight and Broderick, 43, was not hurt.

County prosecutors and jail officials said the fight began when deputies ordered Broderick into isolation as punishment for an earlier incident, and she resisted. But her attorney, Jack Earley of Newport Beach, contended that an unidentified jail guard antagonized Broderick, sparking the scuffle.

Earley also sharply disputed the claim by authorities that Broderick smeared excrement around the isolation cell. He said the toilet in the cell was overflowing and that Broderick, overcome with excitement from the fight, defecated in her pants.

Broderick remains in isolation. She is charged with two counts of murder in the Nov. 5, 1989, shooting deaths of her ex-husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, 44, and his new wife, Linda Kolkena Broderick, 28.

Daniel Broderick was a prominent medical malpractice attorney and a former president of the San Diego County Bar Assn. Linda Kolkena Broderick was his office assistant.

Betty Broderick’s first trial ended in a hung jury. She has remained at the Las Colinas Jail in Santee since she surrendered to authorities the day of the killings.

The killings came after a long and bitter divorce, and the case has attracted wide interest. Aside from countless newspaper stories in the San Diego and national press, the case has been featured in several magazines. Books and television and movie scripts are also in the works.

On Thursday, for instance, Betty Broderick was released temporarily from isolation to do an interview with a crew from the ABC-TV news show “20/20,” Earley said.

The fight took place Sunday, when guards ordered Broderick out of her ordinary cell and into isolation. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jails, said the transfer resulted from an Aug. 22 rules violation, its punishment being four days in isolation.

Earley said Broderick had been chained that day to a bench with a prisoner she considered violent. Fearful, Broderick screamed for attention, and was charged with breaking the rules, Earley said.

However, Sheriff’s Sgt. R. D. Burrows at the jail said there was more to it. Broderick, he said, did not feel the deputy was quick enough in responding to her request, so she grabbed for the deputy’s hand--where the deputy was holding keys. That’s what led to the four-day isolation punishment, he said.

But, when deputies arrived at the cell Sunday, Broderick refused to go.

Her “main complaint was that she was going to be punished for something she didn’t do,” Earley said. “She was very adamant she didn’t want something on her record that just wasn’t true.

“The comment to Betty is, ‘If you don’t like it in jail, you shouldn’t be here,’ ” Earley said Broderick was told by the unnamed deputy. “It’s one of those deputies who want to show you who’s the boss: ‘Here you are, you have some intelligence, you had things going for you, now you’re mine. Now you’re lower than I am.’ You get concerned with people like that.”

Earley said the deputies brought along a video camera when they were about to put Broderick in isolation, expecting problems.

“They dragged her out of the cell, threw her into the isolation cell where the toilet wasn’t working and overflowing,” Earley said. “Betty had just gotten roughed up and hurt, and she ended up going to the bathroom in her pants. There was nowhere else to go.”

Sheriff’s spokesman Dan Greenblatt confirmed that deputies videotaped the scuffle, saying that is routine in transfers to isolation. Broderick, officials said, jumped on her bed frame and held on, then kicked one deputy in the chest, causing that deputy to fall backward and hit her head against a wall bracket.

A second deputy’s shoulder was hurt and a third suffered scrapes and scratches, authorities said. The scuffle added 10 days to Broderick’s time in isolation, Burrows said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kerry Wells, the prosecutor in the case, said investigators told her that Broderick defecated in the isolation cell and smeared the feces on the door and window of the cell.

“She was obviously angry,” Wells said. “When she’s angry, she acts out.”

Greenblatt said deputies do not have a videotape of the defecation.

“Where they got spreading excrement on the wall, I don’t know,” Earley said, adding: “The problem is, why would they videotape everything else and not take a picture of that? That doesn’t make any sense to me. If they’re worried about showing her violent behavior, it doesn’t make any sense that that’s something they didn’t take a picture of.”

Wells said the videotape might be used at the second trial, to rebut a defense contention--if one is presented--that Broderick is peaceful.

Wells also said that it remains uncertain whether the scuffle will lead to more criminal charges against Broderick. Prosecutors are waiting to review deputies’ reports on the fight, Wells said, adding that jail guards were explicitly told “to treat it as though it was any other altercation in jail. We are not requesting any special treatment whatsoever.”

Wells had first disclosed the scuffle Wednesday at a hearing before San Diego Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Whelan, saying she was revealing it because Broderick was scheduled for the “20/20” interview and prosecutors--anxious about publicity that might affect potential jurors--wanted a gag order in the case.

Whelan denied the request.