Sheriff’s Department Denies Deputies Staged Jail Fights

In a strongly worded statement released Monday, Orange County sheriff’s officials denied allegations made in two lawsuits filed this year that deputies were staging fights between inmates in jail.

Assistant Sheriff Rocky Hewitt, who runs jail operations, said he is adamant that deputies are not pitting inmate against inmate. Sheriff’s officials, he said, would fire deputies caught staging fights.

Sheriff’s officials would not discuss specific allegations in the lawsuits but said they never received internal complaints involving the claims.

In the first suit, inmate Andrew Lesky alleges that deputies removed the handcuffs from an inmate and allowed him to attack Lesky as the two left their cells. Lesky suffered a serious cut to his head in the July 1999 attack, the lawsuit states.

In the more recent suit, inmate Robert Mitchell states that he was beaten by a cellmate after deputies placed the two together “for the deputies’ entertainment.” The suit, filed in July, alleges that Mitchell suffered fractures and severe bruising.

The sheriff’s announcement comes as a grand jury, civil rights attorneys and the Sheriff’s Department itself are probing allegations of inmate abuse.

Five weeks ago, an attorney involved in the landmark court order limiting overcrowding at jail facilities filed a memo to a federal judge complaining that some inmates are abused.

Attorney Dick Herman said he has since received dozens of calls and letters from inmates alleging violations of the court order.