Jury Acquits Deputies in Beating Case

A federal jury deliberated less than four hours Wednesday before acquitting two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies of violating the civil rights of two jailed alleged gang members who said they were beaten while handcuffed and chained around the waist.

Deputy Abel Jimenez, 32, was accused of inflicting the beatings while assigned to the Inmate Reception Center, where prisoners are routinely strip-searched after returning from court.

His immediate supervisor, Senior Deputy Phalance Burkhalter, 38, was accused of pressuring the inmates to lie about how they were injured.

Jurors questioned after the verdict were highly critical of the government. They said two sheriff’s deputies who testified against the defendants appeared to have been pressured.

“I felt they were intimidated by the United States,” said juror Joe Handley, a 64-year-old contractor. “Almost all us felt the same way,” added Russ Settell, 58, an Amtrak employee. “They seemed to have been coerced to say what the government wanted them to say.”

Jimenez’s attorney, Ed Rucker, said, “This was a politically motivated case that never should have been brought.”

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the verdict, which came after a three-week trial that was closely watched by the law enforcement community.

Jimenez and Burkhalter still face administrative disciplinary proceedings, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

Jimenez was accused of assaulting Joe Mendez, an alleged member of the 18th Street gang, on Nov. 28, 2001, because of a “look” the inmate gave him while locked in a holding cell at the reception center.

Prosecutors said the deputy pulled Mendez out of the cell, placed him in handcuffs and waist chains and escorted him to an isolation cell, where he repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head and body.

Later that day, according to prosecutors, Burkhalter warned Mendez that the guards would retaliate if he tried to press charges, and told him to say he fell out of bed.

The Sheriff’s Department investigated a complaint filed by Mendez’s mother. Jimenez and Burkhalter said they did not recall any contact with Mendez, who was treated for two scratches on his forehead. No charges were filed at the time.

A little more than a month later, on New Year’s Eve, Jimenez became involved in a confrontation with another inmate, Juan Barragan, identified in court testimony as a onetime “shot-caller” or leader in the 18th Street gang.

Prosecutors said that Jimenez pulled Barragan out of the search line because he refused to stop talking and to stop shaking out his pants. The deputy then ordered him to kneel on a narrow metal bench facing a wall and secured his hands in waist chains.

What happened next was disputed during the trial.

Barragan testified that Jimenez threw him to the floor and that he and another deputy kicked and punched him. He said he suffered a cut lip.

Jimenez did not take the stand, but his attorney cited testimony by Barragan to suggest that the inmate had had a seizure and fallen.

A key prosecution witness was Sheriff’s Deputy Gerardo Avalos, who was working with Jimenez on the search line that day. When questioned by sheriff’s investigators several days after the alleged incident, Avalos said he didn’t see Jimenez hurl the handcuffed inmate to the floor.

But at the trial, he changed his story, saying Barragan was complying with orders when Jimenez “took him down.” When Burkhalter came upon the scene and asked what happened, Avalos said he heard Jimenez say, “He turned on me so I took him down ... or words to that effect.”

However, Avalos had trouble keeping his story straight under cross-examination.

When confronted with inconsistencies between crucial elements of his trial testimony and what he told the grand jury, a flustered Avalos repeatedly responded, “Whatever is in my grand jury testimony is the truth.”

Aside from the alleged beatings, Jimenez was charged with witness tampering because of telephone calls he made to fellow deputies on Jan. 1, 2002, after learning that a criminal investigation had been launched.

Prosecutors said he tried to persuade the other deputies to support his account of the episode. Jimenez and Burkhalter told sheriff’s investigators that Barragan had admitted suffering the cut lip in a fight with another inmate.