Board to Consider Offering $600,000 in Inmate’s Suit

Fearful of losing a costly lawsuit, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has agreed to support a proposed $600,000 settlement that would be paid to a small-time traffic offender who was severely beaten by County Jail inmates 2 1/2 years ago at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

The settlement, subject to a vote of county supervisors next month, would end a suit brought by Steven Sammartano, 34, of Downey, who was supposed to be housed in a protective cell after telling deputies about a plot to smuggle drugs and weapons into the jail.

Sammartano, who refused to take part in the smuggling, told deputies of threats against him but spent less than two days in protective custody at downtown’s Central Jail before being returned by mistake--and despite his protests--to an inmate dormitory at Pitchess, where he was attacked, records show. He suffered a badly broken right forearm, nerve damage and other injuries and has been unable to return to his $40,000-a-year job as an auto mechanic, county attorneys acknowledged.

“We believe a jury will find that the county was deliberately indifferent to a known risk to Steven Sammartano’s security,” Assistant County Counsel S. Robert Ambrose wrote in recommending approval of the settlement by the county Claims Board.

That three-member panel, which reviews all lawsuit settlements above $20,000, gave it a unanimous endorsement Monday.

“What we have here is an inmate who did exactly what we would want an inmate to do when he was approached about transporting contraband,” said Claims Board Chairwoman Nancy Singer. “You’d want [the inmate] to say no and to tell the authorities. That’s what he did.”

Sammartano was serving a sentence of 120 days in County Jail for failing to pay fines of nearly $1,200 for driving with a suspended license. He was sentenced in August of 1993 and sent to Pitchess’ ranch facility, a minimum-security jail that has since been closed.

The attack by 15 or 20 inmates underscores a number of problems in the nation’s largest county jail system, including the difficulty in keeping track of 18,000 to 20,000 inmates.

The Sheriff’s Department, which operates a fleet of buses to move thousands of inmates a day to various jails and courthouses, relies on computers and paperwork to make sure that each inmate goes to the proper place. Sometimes mistakes are made, said Lt. Dennis Burns of the sheriff’s Risk Management Bureau.

A paperwork mix-up and a lack of communication between the two jails caused Sammartano to be sent to the wrong location, Burns said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more errors made . . . because of the sheer volume of people [we move],” he said, noting that no one was disciplined because of the error. “This was a systems problem, not a people problem.”

According to Sammartano’s lawsuit, he feared for his life after being approached by a member of the Mexican Mafia--a powerful gang that operates in the penal system--and pressured to help smuggle in a shoe box containing weapons, drugs, drug paraphernalia and cigarettes, left hidden outside the jail gates.

Like many minimum-security prisoners, Sammartano served as an inmate worker, performing maintenance on county vehicles that occasionally took him outside the jail fences, said his attorney, Michael J. Rand. Other inmates apparently believed that he could locate the shoe box and bring it inside.

Sammartano told deputies that he was being pressured by inmates who “threatened to kill him” unless he helped put the shoe box in their hands, and deputies were then able to locate the box to verify his story, the lawsuit said. Sammartano was transferred to Central Jail, but within 36 hours was sent by bus back to Pitchess, where gang members now saw him as a “snitch.” His repeated protests to deputies were completely ignored, his attorney said.

“What really went wrong here, beside the paperwork . . . mix-up, was that Mr. Sammartano repeatedly attempted to get the ear of various deputies . . . and it’s a difficult thing to let deputies know you’re supposed to be in protective custody without letting the [other prisoners] know about that,” Rand said. “And with one exception, they all said the same thing: ‘Shut the f--- up.’ That was the response from the deputies.”

Burns, the sheriff’s risk management specialist, said part of the trouble is that inmates often claim that they are in danger even when they are not. “But the paperwork should have been there to verify it, he said.”

“It seems to me,” said Sammartano’s attorney, “that if a prisoner tells you he’s supposed to be in protective custody, then it’s obligatory on the part of the deputy to check it out. And if they had checked it out, I don’t think Mr. Sammartano would have been beaten.”

In addition to his arm injuries, the 6-foot, 5-inch and 215-pound Sammartano suffered partial loss of hearing and depression, which required medical treatment. He filed a $4-million civil suit, alleging negligence and charging that the county delayed his release from jail by at least a day to pressure him to sign a waiver freeing the county from liability. He also accused guards of confiscating notes intended to support his case.

“He stated he had a list of witnesses,” said Rand, who declined to let Sammartano be interviewed. Those notes, if they existed, were never recovered, and Sammartano was never able to document that the county tried to pressure him in any way, Rand said.

Burns of the Sheriff’s Department said those issues were never raised during the lawsuit battle. He contended that the department would never try to force a prisoner to sign such a release. “I’ve never heard of that happening,” Burns said. “We don’t do that.”