5 Deputies Acquitted in Student’s Beating Death

After two days of deliberations, a federal jury acquitted five Ventura County sheriff’s deputies Wednesday of contributing to the beating death of Ventura college student Nicholas Dowey.

Former Deputy Donald Rodarte dipped his head in his arms and wept after hearing the verdict. Then he embraced his old partner, Darin Yanover.

Also cleared by the jury, but not present for the verdict, were Deputies Oscar Gongora, Pat Hardy, and Ojai Sheriff’s Capt. James Barrett.

Dowey’s parents, James and Ann Dowey, expressed disappointment.

“If this wasn’t a case of excessive force, I don’t know what is,” James Dowey said.

The Doweys filed the suit after their son, a Cal State Northridge student, died of head injuries suffered at a 1997 Meiners Oaks party that turned violent.

Dowey, 21, was hit in the head with a bat moments before deputies arrived, but the Doweys said Rodarte and Yanover aggravated his injuries by hitting him in the head with a flashlight during a struggle. The other deputies failed to intervene or to get medical attention for the man, they said.

More than a dozen witnesses testified they saw deputies wrestling with Dowey before putting him in a headlock, trying to douse him with pepper spray, and hitting him as many as three times with a flashlight.

Defense attorneys, however, convinced jurors that Dowey was disoriented and combative. Rodarte and Yanover may have struggled with Dowey, but it was because he fought efforts to restrain him until medical aid arrived, attorneys said. The witnesses, defense attorneys said, probably saw Rodarte hit the man with a pepper spray can, but never with a flashlight.

Rodarte was fired from the department after an internal investigation found the deputy lied about striking Dowey with a pepper spray can. The firing came despite a ruling by investigators that Rodarte and other deputies did not use excessive force.