Trial of Guards Opens in Prison Rape Case

The criminal trial of four Corcoran State Prison officers accused of setting up the 1993 rape of inmate Eddie Dillard opened Monday with state prosecutors alleging that the entire incident--from a rape to a cover-up--was a “play cast in hell” with no angels.

In his opening statement, state Deputy Atty. Gen. Vernon Pierson said the four veteran officers had every reason to believe that Dillard would be raped when they transferred him into the cell of Corcoran’s so-called Booty Bandit, a burly inmate with a history of sexual assaults. Dillard, a problem inmate who had assaulted a female guard at another prison, was transferred into the cell of inmate Wayne Robertson to “teach him how to do his time,” Pierson told a Kings County Superior Court jury.

Not only was Robertson listed as Dillard’s enemy in official prison documents, Pierson said, but the 120-pound Dillard pleaded with the officers that he would be in danger of sexual assault if put in Robertson’s cell.

“None of the officers had any intentions of checking Dillard’s claims,” Pierson said. “If they merely could have looked inside his file they would have seen that they were in fact documented enemies.”

Defense attorneys, in their own opening statements, questioned whether a rape ever occurred and added that if Dillard was indeed assaulted, the officers had no motive to have set it up.

“Wayne Robertson is a rapist and a thug, but that fact was not known to the floor staff,” said Curtis Sisk, an attorney representing Sgt. Robert Decker. “You would think that it should have been known to them, but you will realize that they didn’t know nearly as much about individual inmates as you would think they would.”

At the maximum-security San Joaquin Valley prison, Sisk continued, there were many holes in the flow of information that kept officers in the dark about potential problems among inmates.

Moreover, Dillard never informed the officers that there was bad blood between Robertston and himself, said Gerald Lewis, an attorney for co-defendant Sgt. Anthony Sylva.

“At no time, did he say, ‘Robertson is an enemy of mine,’ ” said Lewis. “Eddie Dillard never complained about Wayne Robertson and going into that cell.”

Decker, 41, and Sylva, 36, are on trial along with Officer Joe Sanchez, 38, and Sgt. Dale Brakebill, 34, who at the time of the incident was an officer.

The four are charged with aiding and abetting the rape of Dillard, who was beaten and repeatedly sodomized by Robertson over a 48-hour period, according to grand jury testimony. If found guilty, they could receive sentences ranging from probation to nine years in prison.

The trial is expected to last up to five weeks with testimony from as many as 100 witnesses.

Monday’s session was taken up by seven hours of opening statements by prosecutor Pierson and attorneys for the four defendants, who are all on paid leave.

In his two-hour opening statement, prosecutor Pierson said he will show the jury signed forms that make it clear that Decker knew full well Robertson’s history as a sexual predator.

After Dillard made written complaints about the rape to the Department of Corrections, the prosecutor said, Decker visited Dillard and threatened reprisal. Decker said that if Dillard persisted in his complaints, he would put him back in a cell with Robertson, Pierson told the jury.

Dillard, however, continued to complain, and several weeks later, an investigation into the incident was launched--headed by Decker. “Sgt. Decker was assigned to investigate himself,” said Pierson.

Defense attorneys later attacked the credibility of Dillard and Roscoe Pondexter, a former guard who will be a key witness for the state during the trial. They said Pondexter was fired for brutality against other inmates and was looking to get even with the department when he gave damaging grand jury testimony against the defendants.

“Roscoe Pondexter is a liar. If there ever was a case of bias against the [Corrections Department], it is Roscoe Pondexter,” said Katherine Hart, an attorney for Brakebill.

Wayne Ordos, an attorney for Sanchez, attacked the credibility of Dillard, relating to the jury Dillard’s violent past, including the crime for which he was in prison--firing a shotgun into a rival gang member’s home. “The only gainful employment Eddie Dillard ever had was as a drug dealer,” said Ordos. “He is a liar and a violent predator.”

“Are you going to convict these men on the word of Eddie Dillard?”