08/09/2011
By VIK JOLLY
Prosecutors say five defendants acted as “judge, jury and executioner” when they killed [name withheld] at the Theo Lacy facility, while the defense tells jurors that a former sheriff’s deputy approved the attack.
SANTA ANA – The killing of an inmate identified as a child molester two days after he had been transferred into the Theo Lacy Jail began by fellow inmates first taking away his humanity, a prosecutor told an Orange County jury Monday.
"All those perverts look the same. He was like a little pig," said one of the five men charged, Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh told jurors during opening statements in the trial of five defendants in the killing of [name withheld], 41, who was in jail awaiting trial on a misdemeanor charge of possessing child pornography.
Baytieh showed jurors photos of [name withheld]'s face before and after the beating.
The latter showed him barely recognizable, tubes running in and out of his mouth, eyes swollen shut, a man the prosecutor said had suffered ribs broken and fractured 43 places in the assault, both physical and sexual.
One defense attorney in his opening salvo in Orange County Superior Court Judge James Stotler's courtroom used a baseball analogy to draw jurors' attention to the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate – 60 feet, 6 inches – saying sheriff's personnel responsible for supervising the inmates were 7 feet, 3 inches farther than that distance when [name withheld] was attacked by waves of inmates Oct. 5, 2006.
The beating took place in a "very unhealthy environment" with a jailhouse inmate hierarchy in place, a structure condoned by and "utilized for the convenience of former Orange County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Taylor," said Edward Munoz, the defense attorney for Miguel Guillen, 48.
Guillen of Santa Ana is facing murder charges in [name withheld]'s beating along with Garret Eugene Aguilar, 28, and Stephen Paul Carlstrom, 42, both of Anaheim, Jared Louis Petrovich, 27, of Tustin, and Raul Villafana, 24, also of Santa Ana.
If convicted, the men face possible sentences of 25 years to life in prison. Three other inmates charged in the slaying have pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and a fourth is expected to plead.
Prosecutors said the location of [name withheld]'s beating in Cube D of Barracks F West had a blind spot that could not be monitored by sheriff's personnel.
- So are they going to put a camera here to monitor this known blind spot now?
Fear and anxiety was part of the jailhouse culture, with inmates divided into groups and their leaders delegated authority by deputies, specifically Taylor, defense attorneys said.
Last week, Taylor invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify at the trial at which his then-Theo Lacy colleague Deputy Jason Chapluk is expected to take the stand.
Saying the defense will portray Taylor as being lazy and complicit in the attack and showing pictures of the Theo Lacy wall behind which the assault occurred, Baytieh told jurors the inmates charged acted as the "judge, jury and executioner" on the day of [name withheld]'s killing.
Punched, kicked and stomped on, [name withheld] was found unconscious. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Prosecutors say [name withheld] was beaten by 20 to 25 inmates, but they charged those who they could prove in court killed [name withheld].
His death triggered several investigations, with testimony before a special grand jury revealing an atmosphere of abuse and misconduct at the Theo Lacy jail, where some deputies slept on duty, neglected their rounds and recruited inmates to police one another, often by force.
The defendants are expected to mount their defense on a theory of a jailhouse culture in which inmates must follow the directives or mandates of jail employees or face consequences.
Former Deputy Taylor was more than derelict in his duties because he approved and is complicit in the attack on [name withheld], the defense said.
Allegations that deputies helped set up the attack on [name withheld] were never proved.
