Stakes High as Prison Guards Go on Trial

Corcoran State Prison may be known as America’s deadliest lockup, a place notorious for its own brand of inmate punishment, but among townsfolk in this conservative farm belt it is just another dependable employer down the street.

The walls of the maximum-security prison rise 15 miles from the dairies and walnut groves of Hanford, and the guards who work there are next door neighbors and Little League coaches. The prison’s honor guard marches in the local cotton parade.

But the first criminal trial of Corcoran guards in nearly a decade opens today in Kings County Superior Court, with a cast of characters with names like the Booty Bandit and the Bonecrusher, and Hanford suddenly finds itself besieged. It has become an unlikely star on the map for those seeking to change California prisons and those hoping to retain the status quo.

After years of allegations of set-up rapes and human cockfights staged for the entertainment of Corcoran guards, state prosecutors will point the finger this morning at four veteran officers accused of taking part in some of those horrors.

The two sergeants and two officers are charged with aiding and abetting the March 1993 rape of inmate Eddie Dillard by Corcoran’s so-called “Booty Bandit.” Dillard was beaten and repeatedly sodomized after guards placed him in the cell of Wayne Robertson, a big, burly inmate whose nickname and appetite for sexual assault were known throughout the prison, according to grand jury testimony.

The stakes are high for not only the four officers who deny setting up the rape, but for two powerful forces on the California stage: the prison guards union and the state attorney general’s office.

The union is paying for the legal defense, and the attorney general’s office is heading the prosecution after being criticized by some in legislative hearings last year who said it ignored brutality at Corcoran.

In recent weeks, the union has launched a media campaign targeting residents in Hanford and surrounding farm communities, airing radio and TV ads that feature menacing inmates with tattoos and harried guards walking “the toughest beat in the state.”

Union officials say the commercial spots are designed to “get our message out” and aren’t intended to influence jurors in the state trial or an upcoming federal prosecution of eight Corcoran officers accused of staging inmate fights in a ritual known as “gladiator days.”

But prosecutors and prisoner rights groups say the timing and target of the ads are no accident. Kings County is home to Corcoran and two other state prisons, as well as hundreds of smaller fruit farms and big cotton spreads. Correctional officers and farmers in Wrangler jeans and Chevy trucks dominate the landscape.

Even without the ads, they say, this can be a tough place to prosecute guards on behalf of an inmate victim. “The guards union is trying to do a snow job on the Central Valley with its TV and radio ads,” said Ruthie Gilmore of California Prison Focus.

The prisoner advocacy group, based in San Francisco, will travel to Hanford this morning and hold its own news conference aimed at shaping public opinion.

Residents say they understand that their town has become the backdrop for something larger. Inmates testifying against guards in brutality cases are a rare spectacle in California, and groups on both sides of the aisle are looking to make the most of their forum.

“It’s going to be an interesting trial to watch,” said Robert O’Neill, chugging a quart of whole milk and slicing a tri-tip beef sandwich at his roadside barbecue on the outskirts of town. “We’ll have to see what the evidence is, but if the guards’ attorneys put on any defense at all, I think it will go their way. The jury will be looking for a reason not to believe the inmates.”

But prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that juries, no matter the community they come from, can confound even the best courtroom prognosticators.

“In the end, all that matters is what happens in court,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Vernon Pierson, who heads the prosecution. “We’re confident that the jury will listen to facts and evidence presented in court and that’s what they’ll base their verdict on.”

The accused officers are Sgts. Robert Decker, 41, and Dale Brakebill, 34, and officers Anthony Sylva, 36, and Joe Sanchez, 38. During seven weeks of grand jury testimony last year, the officers either declined to answer questions, citing their 5th Amendment rights, or said they couldn’t recall anything extraordinary the day Dillard was assaulted.

Attorneys for the defense say if a rape did take place, the officers didn’t intend it to happen. Curtis Sisk said his client, Decker, wasn’t even working the day Dillard was transferred to the Booty Bandit’s cell. “The day of the cell transfer was Decker’s day off,” Sisk said.

The state’s case against the Corcoran Four has traveled an extraordinary path. Dillard’s complaints six years ago were initially ignored at the highest levels of the state Department of Corrections, and Kings County prosecutors declared the case “unwinnable” as late as 1997.

A special county grand jury was formed last year after a Times story detailed new allegations from former prison guard Roscoe Pondexter, who backed up Dillard’s account. Pondexter, nicknamed the Bonecrusher, told The Times that it was no secret that Robertson, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound enforcer, raped the 23-year-old Dillard inside the Security Housing Unit as a favor to staff. Pondexter said Robertson had earned his “Booty Bandit” moniker because he did the same thing to a dozen other inmates before and after.

Robertson has testified to the grand jury that guards moved the 120-pound Dillard into his cell because Dillard was a troublemaker and needed to be taught a lesson, according to court transcripts.

Whether race and the sway of the prison industry will affect the trial is a question that both sides are wondering about. The accused officers are white and Latino and the government’s main witnesses--Dillard, Pondexter and Robertson--are black.

During jury selection last week, 500 residents were called for service and more than a third of those questioned by the court said they either worked at one of the three local prisons or had a relative tied to corrections. Each time black residents were placed on the prospective jury, defense attorneys used their allotted challenges to dismiss them.

After four blacks had been excluded, prosecutors asked Kings County Superior Court Judge Louis Bissig if a racial pattern might be emerging. Bissig said he saw no evidence of any racial bias and that each black resident had been dismissed for a legitimate reason, including one man whose wife works as a rape counselor.

A jury of seven men and five women, white and Latino, was eventually chosen.

“Race wasn’t a factor in the selection,” said Katherine Hart, one of four defense attorneys working as a team. “We’re very happy with the jury--farmers, teachers, government workers. This isn’t a county with a superabundance of white collar professionals. The jury we got is good, solid citizens.”

The trial, which could last five weeks with testimony from as many as 100 witnesses, is expected to take the jury inside a cabalistic world where the divide between inmates and guards is not often clear and where favors and paybacks are traded back and forth in an arcane language across the line.

By necessity, state prosecutors say, they must perform an odd dance with Robertson. They have to portray the convicted murderer as an infamous sexual predator to show that any reasonable guard transferring Dillard into Robertson’s cell that day knew the probable outcome.

Prosecutors then must turn around and rely on Robertson’s testimony to back up their main contention that Robertson and Decker were friendly and that Decker ordered the cell transfer a day or two before the rape. He did so, prosecutors allege, to either reward Robertson for keeping problem inmates in line or to punish Dillard for kicking a female guard.

Before the rape, Dillard had listed Robertson as his enemy in prison paperwork because of a prior fight the two inmates had at another prison. This alone should have precluded any move into Robertson’s cell, according to prison policy.

“Dillard should have never been put in the cell with me. Period,” Robertson testified to the grand jury. “I mean, my [background] is no secret. . . . The [corrections department] used me as a pawn to get inmate Dillard.”

Catherine Campbell, a defense attorney who has interviewed Robertson in another case, said Robertson presents a special challenge for prosecutors. “Most prisoners are still a part of humanity. Their crimes can be explained by drugs or some spasm of violence that comes and goes,” she said. “But Robertson is from some other place. He’s evil, pure evil. But even evil can tell the truth.”

Robertson may prove elusive in the end. He admitted to the grand jury that he repeatedly sodomized Dillard by force and threatened to kill him if he put up a fight. But he said to call it rape just didn’t seem right. “Rape is a vile act,” Robertson protested.