Jail Guard Convicted in Inmate Fight

A corrections officer was convicted Tuesday of orchestrating a fight between two inmates at Seal Beach City Jail. A second guard was found not guilty of being an accessory after the fact.

The U.S. attorney general’s office described the conviction of Javier Ferreira, 32, of Riverside as the first federal civil rights prosecution in Orange County for crimes committed while acting as an officer of the law.

The guards, who worked for Correctional Systems Inc. before being fired, were accused by a federal grand jury of arranging and concealing an attack on a drunken inmate who was singing boisterously in the jail’s detoxification cell.

Prosecutors charged Ferreira with goading the attacker before escorting him to the detoxification cell where the beating took place.

James Edward Smith, 27, was accused of covering up the incident, which left 28-year-old Arrow Stowers of Huntington Beach bloodied and badly bruised.

The motive for the June 21 attack was to quiet Stowers, prosecutors said.

Ferreira faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for March 11.

The Seal Beach jail is known as a “pay to stay” facility, where some people convicted of nonviolent crimes can serve out their terms for a fee. In the wake of the beating, Seal Beach officials said they would review how the jail is supervised.