Trapped in a Nightmare That Seemed Endless

They were treated like chattel, strip-searched, shackled, harangued and humiliated, then turned loose without even an apology.

Loretha Britt, a plaintiff in Los Angeles County’s record $27-million settlement over wrongful detainment of jail inmates, said she was strip-searched six times in four days during her 1997 incarceration. Several times it happened in hallways where passing male inmates and deputies made lewd jokes, she said. Her last search came after jail officials finally acknowledged that she should be released because the warrant that landed her there was from a narcotics charge dismissed nearly a year before.

Each time it was the same--take your clothes off, turn around, pick them up without bending your knees, said Britt, a 33-year-old housekeeper from Temple City. “You have to turn your back toward these people and you have to wonder, ‘What are they thinking?’ ”

Britt was among 62 plaintiffs who filed class-action lawsuits against the county for routinely holding inmates beyond their release dates. Their stories offer a chilling lesson in how one mistake can land you in a drama straight out of Kafka or Poe.

By the legal calculus of Tuesday’s announced settlement, Britt will receive money according to a point system. She gets points for being strip-searched, points for being wrongfully detained six days, points for turning down cash settlement offers from the county that did not include reforms.

But there are no points for the inner terror that drove Britt to talk of suicide.

As many as 400,000 former inmates could join the class and divide the award. A Web site has been set up for anyone who might qualify for the class action: https://www.rosenthalco.com/jail.

The eight victims who spoke Thursday with The Times do not care to calculate the price of their experiences.

“What is it worth to you to be humiliated, to be degraded and treated like an animal? How do you put a price on that?” asked Valerie Ann Streit, who was held 24 hours beyond a judge’s release order.

The victims were from ordinary walks of life: accountant, hotel clerk, film editor, fitness trainer. All arrived under the premise central to the American justice system: innocent until proven guilty.

Instead, victims say they were verbally and psychologically abused as if their sentences had already begun.

‘This Happens to Regular People’

Beyond tales of rules gone awry and lost paperwork, the cases offer a look at life inside the lockup from people whose only previous view of the system was from television and books.

“This happens to regular people,” said Diane Betts, a Moorpark accountant arrested along with her husband in a domestic dispute and kept for four days after charges were dropped.

“I know how people think: People in jail are all guilty. That’s their life,” she said. “But it could be anybody. It could be your wife, your daughter. It’s not right. People down there don’t even know that they have constitutional rights.”

The stories begin with what appeared to police to be justifiable arrests: allegedly driving while intoxicated, domestic abuse, bench warrants. All the victims, however, were supposed to be released pending trials or hearings, after charges were not filed or warrants were vacated.

But when gavels struck or bail was posted, they were sent back into their personal hells one last time. Some stayed a day or two, others a week or more. One man, who could not be contacted for comment, was lost in the system for five months on improper warrants, according to court papers.

County attorneys say they have not admitted wrongdoing, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has already implemented reforms. Among them, inmates ordered released by a judge are now let go from court, officials say, and strip-searches have been eliminated for detainees who are awaiting arraignment, who have been acquitted or whose charges have been dropped.

And detainees alleging erroneous warrants now have their fingerprints checked by jailers, rather than waiting days for a judge to weigh in on their identity.

The department also insists that its rules already prohibit male inmates and deputies from witnessing strip-searches of women. But every woman interviewed by The Times said she was forced to disrobe near men.

“Clearly the Sheriff’s Department has to change,” Sheriff Lee Baca said at a news conference earlier this week. “We have to keep up with the times. I believe the Sheriff’s Department ought to be the biggest defender of civil rights.’

Plaintiffs say they hope their time without civil rights will ensure someone else’s rights in the future.

“Everybody thinks two days is no big deal, but try to picture it in your head,” said Michael Roerich, a 39-year-old West Hills resident who said he spent two extra days in county jail in 1997, despite being ordered released by a judge after posting bail for a drunk-driving bench warrant.

“You’re in a room with, like, 500 people in it,” Roerich said. “It’s like being in a gymnasium. No breaks, just to go out to eat. When you go out, you’re stepping over [inert] bodies. You can’t complain or you’ll be one of them.”

Roerich is the first to admit his arrest was legitimate.

“I did screw up, but there’s a point where you’ve done everything you can to rectify it legally,” he said. “When the judge says you’re free, you’re free. You pay your money. But when they make you go through this humiliating experience--that’s why there was a suit. And it’s been going on for years.”

‘Good News and Bad News’

Streit, who was arrested by Santa Monica police on suspicion of spousal abuse, said she stayed 24 hours too long after a judge ordered her immediate release because of her asthma.

“Immediately, to me, means right now,” said Streit, who also reached a $15,000 settlement with the city of Santa Monica over her May 2, 1998, arrest. Charges were dropped a month later.

“My attorney told me he has good news and bad news,” she said. “I said, ‘What’s the good news?’ He said, ‘They’re bringing your sandwiches from the bus.’ I said, ‘What’s the bad news?’ He said, ‘The bad news is you’re going back to the Twin Towers.’ ”

Twin Towers is the county’s newest downtown correctional facility, where Streit shared a cell with a methamphetamine addict and rubbed shoulders with murder suspects and repeat felons with jailhouse tattoos and icy stares.

“I get back from court, there’s 60 of us and they stop us in the hallway, which is right next to the men’s detention,” Streit said. “They made us strip. They make you grab your ankles. It was the most humiliating thing. There were girls crying.”

Her hyped-up cellmate rambled on about her own sentence. “She kept saying, ‘Is 150 days a long time? Is 150 days a long time?’ I said, ‘Five minutes is a long time!’ ”

Enlisting help from inside proved frustrating.

Britt, the woman who was searched six times, said she pleaded with deputies to check their computers, which should have confirmed that her release had been ordered. Each time, she said, they told her the rules required that they wait until the computer printed out her name.

“I said the computer don’t know . . . , because if the computer knew . . . I wouldn’t be here,” Britt said. “It seemed like I was in a concentration camp and there was no way out.”

After 36 hours, she felt defeated. She called her family and said she was contemplating suicide. Her mother calmed her down. Britt collapsed on the floor of her crowded holding cell and tried to sleep. When she opened her eyes, she said, she saw male inmates watching her through the large window to the cell and masturbating.

Although men and women are housed in separate units at Twin Towers, their paths can cross at the facility’s intake center, a jail watch commander said.

In the end, Britt said, she took to pressing her face against the window of her cell, staring at the computer as it spat out name after name of inmates who would be released. Finally, she saw hers.

“That’s my name right there,” she cried to the deputy.

“You have to wait,” she said he replied.

Britt pleaded for the deputy to give her the paper. Finally, he opened the door to the cell and she stepped out. She was led into the corridor, was strip-searched once more, and put in another cell upstairs, she said. Eight hours later, at 2 a.m., she was released without a word, onto a dim city street where men buzzed around her like gnats, propositioning her for sex.

‘There Were Threats; It Was So Surreal’

Leellen Patchen’s four days were similar. The 39-year-old film editor from Glendale said she pleaded with deputies to release her because the district attorney had declined to file charges in her domestic abuse case.

“I said over and over: I’m not supposed to be here, just let me go now, don’t do this,” said Patchen. “They just kept saying: ‘Turn around and face the wall. Do as you’re told. Shut up.’ There were threats. It was so surreal. I felt violated. Maybe rape is something like this.

“My sense of self was so destroyed that I think that when I enter situations now where I have to defend myself, I shut down when I reach a certain point in the confrontation and start to cry.”

Eric Mitchell was arrested in January 1995, after a traffic stop revealed two bench warrants. It was a Sunday night. On Monday, a Torrance judge released him on one warrant. On Tuesday, a Long Beach judge released him on another. Mitchell thought his time behind bars was over.

“They took me to the L.A. County Jail, and that’s when I got lost,” Mitchell said. “I’m telling them that I’m supposed to be released, and they keep telling me to sit down. I called the public defender’s office every hour and tried to get ahold of my public defender. No word came back. Not ever.

“I’m just left hanging there, helpless,” he said. “It’s scary in there. You don’t know when you’re going to get out, and you don’t know what’s going to happen to you. You start thinking about life and death. You’re afraid to go to sleep.”

Mitchell thought he got lucky when jailers put him in with the trusties, inmates who have been granted special privileges. But then he saw one get stabbed in the shower. Finally, on Friday, he was told to roll up his mattress and go.

“I didn’t ask them any questions,” he said. “I just got out of there.”

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Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this story.