David Kravets, The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An investigation into possible corruption within the California Department of Corrections was a “sham” and the agency’s former director should face charges, a court-appointed monitor said.
The monitor, John Hagar, said in a 71-page report Thursday that former corrections director Edward Alameida shut down investigations of inmate abuse “well before their completion” and lied about it in court.
The report to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson also said Alameida succumbed to pressure from the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the state’s most powerful labor union.
Executive vice president Lance Corcoran said the union did not lean on the corrections agency in hopes of foiling a perjury investigation.
“We do not support bad cops,” Corcoran said. “But we object to investigations we find unnecessary, unwarranted or unfounded.”
Hagar recommended that Alameida be charged with contempt of court, which could result in months in prison if proven.
Hagar also recommend that Henderson charge Thomas Moore, a corrections department chief investigator who resigned last year, with contempt. He is accused of hindering the investigations and lying about it in court. Moore could not be immediately located for comment.
Alameida resigned from the corrections department last month amid allegations he impeded investigations into claims that Pelican Bay State Prison guards committed perjury during inmate-abuse federal trials.
He denied the accusations Thursday, saying he was “particularly disturbed by allegations that I interfered with an investigation or investigations, allegations I emphatically deny.”
The corrections agency came under federal scrutiny two years ago after prison guards Jose Ramon Garcia and Edward Michael Powers were sentenced to seven and six years in prison, respectively, for inmate abuse.
Between 1992 and 1996, they solicited inmates to attack child molesters, sex offenders and other inmates at the maximum-security facility in Crescent City, which houses about 3,200 inmates.
The corrections department, under Alameida’s leadership, promised it would investigate and fire guards who committed perjury during those trials, or who were involved in abusing inmates. That did not happen, the report said.
“The failures of the post-Powers investigation are also illustrative of a pattern of conduct in which CDC officials at the highest level demonstrate an unwillingness and inability to investigate and discipline serious abuses of force by correctional officers,” Hagar wrote.
A proper investigation was not held, said Hagar, who added that CDC officials “at the highest level demonstrate an unwillingness and inability to investigate and discipline serious abuses of force by correctional officers.”
Henderson had not said by mid-day Friday whether he would follow Hagar’s recommendations.