$500,000 for Texas Teen Sodomized in Jail
According to final judgment entered in federal court for the Southern District of Texas on December 18, 2023, Brazos County paid $500,000 to a former detainee assaulted at the county jail in October 2022. The victim, identified as “A.R.,” was a minor at the time of the attack, during which he was sodomized with a broomstick by three fellow detainees.
Jail surveillance video captured the trio—Fidel Sanchez, Tavares Lyles and Devin Newton, all then 17—applying liquid soap to the broom handle to lubricate it before using it repeatedly to rape A.R., who was left with internal injuries after the five-hour ordeal. All three were charged with aggravated sexual assault; Sanchez and Newton were also charged with aggravated sexual assault with a deadly weapon.
A.R.’s lawsuit noted that the area where the attack occurred was reserved for minors, but no jailers were monitoring it, allowing his assault to be cruelly prolonged. He repeatedly pressed a call button, but it was turned off at the time. A lack of operating intercoms had been noted during a Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspection in June and July 2022, three to four months before the incident.
The traumatic incarceration was A.R.’s first, following a misdemeanor arrest. He said the other three detainees taunted him during the day, eventually cornering him in a cell and nearly knocking him unconscious. Sanchez demanded passwords to A.R.’s jail commissary account, which he surrendered; however, the assault continued until curfew lockdown, when the victim was finally able to get help. The payment he agreed to accept included fees and costs for his attorneys from the Law Office of Dean Malone PLLC in Dallas. See: A.R. v. Brazos Cty., USDC (S.D. Tex.), Case No. 4:23-cv-01167.
Sanchez, now 19, was sentenced to a 50-year prison term on January 29, 2024, after entering a plea agreement that also covered previous charges for beating a child with a stick and leaving him with fractures to his eye socket and ankle. Charges for A.R.’s assault are still pending against Lyles and Newton, along with previous gun theft charges. Newton picked up additional charges after allegedly assaulting a guard at the jail in December 2023.
Additional sources: KAGS, KBTX, KWXT, WTAW
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Related legal case
A.R. v. Brazos Cty.
| Year | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (S.D. Tex.), Case No. 4:23-cv-01167 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |
| Damages | 500,000.00 |