By Brooke Kaufman

A lawsuit filed by 14 state prisoners in the District of New Mexico federal court on April 4, 2022, alleges their civil and constitutional rights were violated with “intentionally punishing strip searches” while being held by the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD).

After their transports to Central New Mexico Correctional Facility (CNMCF) in Los Lunas in March and April 2020, plaintiffs were allegedly greeted by multiple guards who tried to provoke fights with racial slurs and strip-searches during which they taunted the prisoners to “bend over like good little girls” and spread their “ass-cheeks like good little bitches.”

The threats, bullying, and intimidation — as well as forcible, unsterilized head shaving that took place after the strip-search — were allegedly premeditated by “high-ranking NMCD staff members” in order to deliberately punish the plaintiffs. 

Prisoners Adrian Lovato, Joshua Beasley, Callupp Henderson, Dan Hoffert, Reuben Stokes, Arrison Parrish, Gabriel Ramirez, Oswaldo Robeldo-Valencia, Aloysius Sanchez, Fidel Sanchez, Simon Griego, Thomas McCue, Gilbert Sedillo, and Wilbert Sorto are filing the complaint under the federal Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

The named defendants are CNMCF Assistant Warden Joe Lytle and nine guards: captains Emmitt Bland and Jesse Diaz, Lt. David Verrett, as well as Jordan Bojorquez, Lukas Chavez, plus three guards identified as Herrera, Young and Martinez, and three more “Doe” guards.

They are accused of “maliciously” engaging in “unnecessary and excessive acts of force to cause harm to Plaintiffs” and “actively participat[ing]” in the abuse at CNMCF, violating the plaintiffs’ Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

According to plaintiff Lovato, some defendants even recorded the incident on their cell phones for their later amusement. Lovato and the other plaintiffs say they were forced to endure “pain, suffering, and sexual humiliation as a result of the Defendant’s behavior.”

Defendant Lytle, a high-ranking member of NMCD staff, is also accused of organizing and encouraging as well as recording the events. He faces a second count of violating the plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process because after he inflicted this punishment on them, he then left them unable to challenge it.

The complaint points out that no “legitimate penological interest exists” in the subversions of protocol, threats, and abuse that occurred at CNMCF. Likewise, given the nature of the punishment inflicted upon the plaintiffs, no NMCD procedure could be invoked to justify the actions of the defendants.

Plaintiffs are requesting a jury trial to recover compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney’s fees and other forms of relief deemed appropriate by the Court. They are represented by attorneys Matthew E. Coyte of Coyte Law P.C. and Steven Robert Allen of the New Mexico Prison and Jail Project. See: Lovato v. Lyttle, USDC (D.N.M.), Case No. 1:22-cv-00255.

Coyte has successfully challenged NMCD before, winning a $750,000 settlement in 2013 for 442 CNMCF prisoners forced to strip down to their underwear and “sit front-to-back in a line with their legs straddling and genitals touching the buttocks of the prisoner in front of them,” a protocol charmingly refered to among guards as “nuts to butts.” [See: PLN, Aug. 2015, p.24.]

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