5 Charged in Corcoran Prison Rape

Five state correctional officers have been indicted by a special Kings County Grand Jury on conspiracy and other charges stemming from a 1993 rape at Corcoran State Prison by an inmate enforcer nicknamed the “Booty Bandit.”

The five officers, including a lieutenant, were booked at the Kings County Jail Thursday afternoon on a variety of criminal charges, including conspiracy to carry out a sodomy and preparing false reports. The indictments came after a three-month investigation by the state attorney general’s office into allegations of planned rapes and cover-up at the prison between Bakersfield and Fresno.

The Kings County Sheriff’s Department identified the five men as Lt. Jeffrey A. Jones, 36; Sgt. Robert Allan Decker, 40; Sgt. Dale S. Brakebill, 33; and Officers Anthony J. Sylva, 35, and Joe Sanchez, 37.

The March 1993 rape of inmate Eddie Dillard, a 23-year-old Los Angeles gang member imprisoned for assault with a deadly weapon, had been investigated last year by a state Corrections Department team and the Kings County district attorney’s office. Convicted murderer Wayne Robertson had told state investigators that he raped Dillard at the behest of prison staff, in part because Dillard had kicked a female guard at another prison. But because the initial investigation couldn’t break what authorities have described as Corcoran’s code of silence--no officers would come forward with information about the alleged crime--the matter was dropped. The attorney general’s office, which had been told about the case last year by Kings County authorities, decided not to investigate.

Then this July, a story in The Times focused on one former guard who gave the newspaper a firsthand account of the rape. Roscoe Pondexter described how fellow officers had transferred Dillard into Robertson’s cell, knowing that the 6-foot-3, 230-pound prison enforcer would probably rape the small, slender Dillard.

In August, after striking an immunity deal with Pondexter, the attorney general’s office convened a special grand jury in Kings County and subpoenaed Pondexter, Dillard, Robertson and several officers.

There was concern at the attorney general’s office that the regular Kings County Grand Jury, known for its conservative, pro-law enforcement bent, would not return an indictment against Corcoran officers, many of whom live in the community.

Indeed, last year, that grand jury refused to indict officers in another Corcoran case in which a busload of black inmates were allegedly beaten during a transfer to Corcoran.

“We decided not to file the [Dillard] case because . . . we didn’t have any officers willing to cooperate with us,” said Assistant Dist. Atty. Larry Crouch. “Since then, a correctional officer has come forward and spoken to [The Times] and testified before the grand jury, and that has altered the case. We didn’t have Pondexter at the time. We didn’t have that one thing that we needed.”

According to the accounts of Pondexter and Dillard and the statements Robertson made to state investigators, it was Sgt. Decker who gave the order that Dillard should be moved into Robertson’s cell on the day of the rape.

‘This Guy’s My Enemy. He’s a Sexual Predator’

Robertson wasn’t shy about being called the Booty Bandit. He told corrections investigators that any time Corcoran supervisors needed an inmate to be “checked,” they could call on him. Depending on his mood, he said, he would either rape or beat them. A dozen such assaults and rapes were documented in his prison file. He said he got extra food and tennis shoes in return.

Dillard told The Times that he had been at Corcoran about a week when he was told: “Roll up your crap, you’re moving.” Officer Sylva and another guard escorted him from one section of the security housing unit to another, he said.

Along the way, they informed him that his new cellmate would be Robertson.

“I told them, ‘You can’t put me in there. This guy’s my enemy. He’s a sexual predator.’ ”

Dillard said Sylva responded, “It’s happening. Since you like hitting women, we’ve got somebody for you.”

A few years earlier, at another prison, Dillard had spurned Robertson’s sexual advances, and this led to a fight, Dillard said. He so feared Robertson that he listed him as an enemy in his personal file. Under prison policy, this alone should have precluded any move into Robertson’s cell.

Pondexter said in an interview that he didn’t know at the time of the cell move that Dillard had kicked a female officer.

“I didn’t know what wrong Dillard had done, but my superiors obviously wanted him punished,” he said. “Everyone knew about Robertson. He had raped inmates before, and he’s raped inmates since.”

Dillard said that on the way to Robertson’s cell, he lodged more protests but that none of the officers would listen. As soon as the door clanged shut, he said, Robertson began to lecture him.

Dillard was there because Decker thought he needed to be “taught a lesson on how to do your time,” Robertson told him, according to internal prison reports. “You know better than to be kicking a female officer,” Robertson reportedly said.

The lights went out and Robertson grabbed at the 120-pound Dillard, who said that he tried to fight back but that Robertson was too powerful. Dillard said he pounded on the cell door to let guards know he was in trouble, but that no one came as he was repeatedly raped.

Dillard later gave his account of the attack to an officer who hand-carried a report of the rape to then-Sgt. Jones, according to internal reports. Jones reportedly told the officer, “What do you want me to do with this? Nobody wants to do anything about it.”

In a July interview, Dillard said: “They took something from me that I can never replace. I’ve tried so many nights to forget about it, but the feeling just doesn’t go away. Every time I’m with my wife, it comes back what he did to me. I want a close to the story. I want some salvation. But it keeps going on and on.”

On Thursday, Decker was arrested on four criminal counts, including conspiracy in a rape and preparing false evidence. Sylva and Brakebill were charged with two counts, including conspiracy. Sanchez was charged with three counts, including conspiracy, and Jones was charged with being an accessory after the fact.

Dillard declined to comment Thursday.

Pondexter said the indictments were “welcome but difficult news.”

“After examining my heart, I felt it was the right thing to do--to come forward and talk about what happened to Dillard that day, to let the public know,” he said.

“It’s never easy to break the code of silence. It took me five years. There are no winners on either side. A lot of good officers are going to be stained by this.”

State Department of Corrections chief Cal Terhune, who assumed his job in mid-1997, said Thursday that the allegations were troubling and commended Pondexter for finally coming forward.

“If it did happen, it’s the worst fear that anyone could have going into a prison. We have a moral and legal responsibility to respond to it,” Terhune said.

Pondexter “should be recognized, and the public should be appreciative of what he did,” he added.

James Maddock, special agent in charge of the Sacramento office of the FBI, applauded the indictments. FBI agents have conducted a four-year investigation into the 1994 shooting death of inmate Preston Tate at Corcoran. That probe has resulted in the federal indictments of eight Corcoran officers for allegedly setting up inmate fights for blood sport. A trial is pending.

“I am encouraged by the grand jury’s action,” Maddock said. “The state’s investigation is a recognition of the fact that there were serious civil rights abuses occurring at Corcoran. We applaud the substantial commitment of state resources to uncover those abuses.”

Lance Corcoran, vice president of the state prison guards union, said it was a sad day for guards. “It’s unfortunate that five people who to my knowledge have done nothing wrong have to go through such hell.”

He said the union hopes that once the case goes to court, the officers “will be vindicated.”

After being booked, the suspects were released on their own recognizance pending arraignment.

The grand jury, which questioned 40 witnesses, will continue its investigation, trying to determine if the conspiracy went deeper. Robertson, who is already serving a life term, wasn’t indicted.

In addition to the charges involving the rape of Dillard, the grand jury also indicted Sgt. Decker on a charge of conspiring with Robertson to rape inmate Melvin Davis in June 1993.

“During our investigation of [the Dillard case] we discovered evidence of an additional and similar situation,” said Rob Stutzman, spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

Lungren has scheduled a news conference for today in Sacramento to discuss the Dillard case.

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Arax reported from Fresno and Gladstone from Sacramento.