FBI to help study inmate's death

The agency will also study reports of brutality and rights violations in the state prison system. Meanwhile, two more guards are put on leave.

By LUCY MORGAN and SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 24, 1999

TALLAHASSEE -- The FBI on Friday joined an investigation prompted by the suspicious death of a Florida state prison inmate, widening the probe to include "numerous" reports of brutality and civil rights violations by officers throughout the prison system.

With the head of the Department of Corrections conceding a culture of silence within his department, two more prison guards were placed on paid leave Friday for refusing to cooperate with state investigators looking into the inmate death.

That brings to 11 the number of corrections officers placed on paid administrative leave after the death of condemned killer Frank Valdes a week ago today.

Investigators suspect that Valdes, a 36-year-old convicted of killing a prison guard in 1987, died after a beating by corrections officers. All of his ribs were broken and his upper body carried boot marks. (Although the Corrections Department spells his name Valdez, his birth certificate spells it Valdes.)

The involvement of the FBI and the U.S. attorney, which was requested by Florida state officials, came as reports of other incidents of inmate abuse surfaced:

Hours before the FBI announcement, the Florida Justice Institute, a prison advocacy group in Miami, sued, alleging that six guards at Florida State Prison broke the ribs of convicted rapist David C. Skrtich in January 1998. The lawyers describe the alleged incident as "remarkably similar" to Valdes' death.

Lawyers in that case also said that they had been informed that five Florida State Prison inmates were "routinely beaten" in the days before Valdes' death. At least two other inmates have written letters alleging that the five inmates were beaten after transfer from Hamilton Correctional Institution.

The Department of Corrections declined to comment on the specific allegations raised by the inmates' lawyers and refused to allow the St. Petersburg Times to interview the prisoners. But Corrections Secretary Michael Moore pledged to cooperate with the FBI investigation.

"I want to find out what happened," Moore said at a news conference with James T. Moore of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "I want to find out what happened if we have to turn every stone. We want to get to the bottom of this and I expect our employees to fully cooperate."

Prison officials who don't cooperate with federal and state investigators will be held accountable, the DOC's Moore said. He is also looking at organizational changes to help solve problems stemming from a culture of silence among some prison guards.

"It's a culture of close-knit people who are afraid to talk," he said. "We have generation upon generation of people working in some areas."

The DOC said Florida State Prison Officers Daren Charles Patgett, 34, and Philip E. Maddox Jr., 26, were placed on administrative leave for refusing to cooperate.

Initially, the FDLE's Moore, who is not related to the man who runs the prison system, said he expects the FBI's investigators to focus on abuse complaints coming from inmates at Florida State Prison. But they will be free to expand the inquiry to other prisons if similar problems are reported.

In addition to the state and federal investigations, the DOC"s Moore said he will take internal action. He is planning to install video cameras to monitor activity in X Wing, the solitary confinement wing where Valdes died.

Moore already has changed the chain of command for prison investigators. They once reported to individual wardens of the prisons. They now report to the inspector general's office, in an attempt to separate those who investigate problems from their supervisors.

The FBI announcement came hours after the Florida Justice Institute filed the lawsuit in U.S. district court in Jacksonville and asked Attorney General Janet Reno for a federal investigation.

The prison group contends that four guards, at the direction of Capt. Timothy Thornton and another senior officer, entered inmate David Skrtich's cell, shocked him with an electrically charged shield and punched and kicked him in the ribs, ankle and knees.

Thornton was the senior officer present during the Valdes incident and is one of the nine prison guards put on administrative leave earlier this week.

The Department of Corrections identified Skrtich, 53, who has a tattoo on his forehead, in its records as David C. Skritch. He was sentenced to life for sexual battery in Baker County in 1977. In 1980, he got an additional 15-year term for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

The lawsuit filed Friday alleges that six Florida State Prison officers covered up their "unjustified" use of force on Skrtich by filing false reports. The reports stated they saw a weapon in the inmate's left hand. They blamed Skrtich's injuries on his "falling against the sink and commode in his cell."

The lawsuit said Skrtich was eventually airlifted to a hospital in Jacksonville, where he remained for nine days recovering from "multiple" broken ribs, a perforated chest wall and contusions, including shoe marks on his back and chest. He was transferred to a prison medical unit, where he spent two months recovering.

"The brutal actions of FSP's cell extraction squad have been ongoing for at least a year," attorneys Randall C. Berg Jr. and Peter M. Siegel said in a letter to Reno.

The lawyers also said that they had been informed about alleged abuse involving five inmates transferred to FSP after a disturbance at Hamilton Correctional Institution this month.

On Friday, Jennifer Corey, Valdes' former lawyer, forwarded a letter from death-row inmate Michael Lambrix to the St. Petersburg Times. Lambrix, 39, described the incident involving the five inmates and also the circumstances that led to Valdes' death.

On July 3, Lambrix said, a number of inmates assaulted two female guards at Hamilton. Shortly thereafter, the prisoners were transferred to Florida State Prison's X Wing.

"That night, Sunday, July 4, a group of guards came on the wing and pulled the Hamilton inmates out of their cell one at a time and beat them half to death," wrote Lambrix, who was sent to death row for murdering two people in Glades County. "Even with the heavy cell doors closed, you could hear the blows and the screams, especially the two who were beaten outside my cell door."

He went on:

"It wasn't long after that that Frank (Valdes) was knocking on my floor (his ceiling) to call me up to the vent and telling me we need to write people and let them know what's going on.

"The following night, Monday July 5, the guards did it again, and then again in the morning of July 10."

Lambrix said two officers bragged about taking pictures.

"By Friday, I know they had found out me and Frank had wrote people about the assaults, as one of the officers made a comment about it.

"The next morning, they killed Frank."

And the following day, Lambrix said, he was pulled from his cell, beaten and told to forget about what happened on X Wing or he'd end up in a "body bag."

Attorneys Susan Cary and Edward Doskey, who visited Lambrix in recent days, noted a black eye and bruises on his stomach.

After complaining, Lambrix said in the letter to the attorney, he received a false disciplinary report for having a razor blade in his cell "fabricated specifically to send me back to X Wing."

Before he learned of Valdes' death, William Van Poyck, his co-defendant in the 1987 murder of a prison guard, also wrote that inmates who had been transferred from Hamilton were "methodically" beaten.

"They are not feeding or showering them and are beating them every day," Van Poyck said, in a letter dated July 17, 1999, to Cary, a Gainesville lawyer."These guards are out of control and are going to kill someone."

The Times has received reports of more than a dozen inmates who have allegedly been pummeled by guards at Florida State Prison since April 1998, including a few in X Wing and others confined to different cellblocks.

The alleged injuries include broken ribs, head bruises and chest wounds.

Corrections spokesman C.J. Drake said he did not know about the Hamilton incident and even if he did, he could not comment on it because "it comes under the cover of the investigation."

He said the department had decided to deny all Times requests for interviews with inmates who say they were beaten, including two who have signed affidavits asking to see Times reporters.

"We just cannot allow the news media to enter the grounds of Florida State Prison while a criminal investigation is under way there," Drake said.

He added that he did not know about other abuse allegations and cautioned that the Valdes incident "as unfortunate as it is, has created an atmosphere in which former and current inmates feel they have a forum to rehash allegations about their treatment in prison."

"I think you'll find that in many cases we have investigated these allegations and have taken the appropriate actions, whatever it was."

-- Times staff writer Adam C. Smith and researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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