The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was “woefully deficient” in failing to protect a female prisoner from sexual abuse by BOP guards, U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga concluded in November 2008, following a bench trial in a suit filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Ultimately, though, the BOP escaped liability as the prisoner’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations.

A 34-year-old lesbian prisoner informant, identified in court documents as “S.R.,” made multiple trips from the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut to the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Miami, Florida between 2002 and 2005 to testify on behalf of the government at drug-trafficking trials. Her stays at FDC-Miami were less than pleasant: S.R. claimed she was sexually assaulted and raped by four BOP guards – Damioun Cole, Charles Jenkins, Antonio Echeverria and Isiah Pollock III.

Jenkins, Echeverria and Pollock, for example, would not let S.R. use the telephone, obtain clean clothes or read the newspaper until she masturbated for them, placed objects inside her vagina and allowed them to digitally penetrate her. Cole, on the other hand, reportedly raped and sodomized S.R. over a dozen times.

In December 2003, a year after the abuse began, S.R. notified the BOP of the sexual assaults. Additionally, she wrote a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rochlin, stating that the sexual assaults were “embarrassing, degrading and I don’t want to go through this anymore.” S.R. requested to leave FDC-Miami “as soon as possible,” and indicated her de-sire to “press charges” against the guards who had “violated” her.

Not much came of S.R.’s complaints, though. The BOP wrote S.R. off as being “mentally ill,” as she had a history of mental health issues and was on medication. A Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal called her allegations “fabricated.” The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General closed its investigation into S.R.’s complaints in 2005 after it could not substantiate her accusations. All the while she was testifying against other criminal defendants on behalf of the same government that found her not to be a credible witness!

Amazingly, just one month after being interviewed by the Inspector General’s Office, S.R. was again transferred to FDC Miami. This time her testimony was requested in the criminal prosecution of Cole for sexually abusing a different prisoner. After Cole learned that S.R. was prepared to testify against him, he pled guilty. In a deposition, FBI agent James Kaelin stated he had enough evidence to charge Cole with sexually assaulting S.R., too.

“The system took advantage of me,” S.R. told the Miami Herald in a phone interview. “They knew when to pull me to testify. I was a very credible witness. I was competent. But then when I needed them, I was mentally ill. I was incompe-tent.”

After her release from federal custody in June 2006, S.R. obtained counsel and sued the federal government along with Echeverria, Pollock, Cole and Jenkins. She settled with three of the guards but her remaining claims against the United States went to trial.

Following a bench trial in July 2008, Judge Altonaga concluded that “S.R. was sexually abused on numerous occa-sions by the individual defendants. The BOP and FDC-Miami did have notice of the illegal conduct taking place, and were woefully deficient in addressing it and giving S.R. protection.”

However, because S.R. had failed to file a tort claim within two years of the sexual abuse, her negligence claims against the government were barred by the statute of limitations; further, she was not entitled to equitable tolling of the limitations period. “[R]egrettably, S.R. has not shown that extraordinary circumstances both beyond her control and un-avoidable even with diligence existed, entitling her to an equitable tolling of the jurisdictional requirements of the FTCA,” the court stated. See: S.R. v. United States, U.S.D.C. (S.D. Fla.), Case No. 1:07-cv-20648-CMA; 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89741 (S.D. Fla., Nov. 5, 2008).

“On one hand, the federal prison system doesn’t have the proper mechanisms to report and investigate sexual as-saults by corrections officers against inmates,” said Matthew Sarelson, S.R.’s attorney. “Then you have the U.S. Attor-ney’s Office dropping the ball. You had assistant federal prosecutors who knew what was going on yet did nothing. That is troubling.”

Cole was sentenced to one year in prison and one year supervised release on the sexual assault charge involving another female prisoner. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not prosecute him for raping S.R. Echeverria continues to deny sexually abusing S.R. In 2006, he lost his job and was sent to federal prison after pleading guilty to selling a gun to a con-victed felon who was a police informant. Pollock resigned from the BOP in 2003, citing personal reasons; he was under investigation for misconduct at the time. Jenkins is still employed with the BOP.

“Closure for me is seeing all four of those men who sexually abused me punished or dead,” said S.R., who has been slowly rebuilding her life after her release.

This is just one prisoner’s experience with rape and sexual assault by prison employees, and unfortunately it is nei-ther unusual nor uncommon. According to a report by the U.S. Dept. of Justice released last year, an estimated 38,600 state and federal prisoners self-reported being sexually victimized by prison staff in 2007. Sexual abuse by prison and jail officials was the subject of PLN’s May 2009 cover story.

Sources: Miami New Times, Miami Herald

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