Transcripts reveal lax monitoring of O.C. inmates
Jail guards watched DVDs, chatted on cellphones and read books, according to grand jury testimony on the October 2006 fatal beating of inmate John Chamberlain.
In the glass-enclosed bubble where guards at Theo Lacy Jail were supposed to be monitoring inmates, diversions were often sought and easily found.
Guards regularly watched films on a DVD player, used their personal laptops, chatted on personal cellphones, and read books and magazines, according to an Orange County sheriff's officer who testified before a grand jury investigating the slaying of a jail inmate.
These details emerged today from some 7,000 pages of transcripts made public for the first time.
Special Officer Phillip Le, who was 23 and had been with the department for two years at the time of the beating death of John Chamberlain in October 2006, exercised his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination when he was called as the first witness before the grand jury that convened in August 2007.
After striking a deal with prosecutors that nothing he said could be used against him in a further proceeding, Le, who was working at F Barracks where Chamberlain was killed, described a jail culture in which distractions abounded. During one shift, Le said, he recalled deputies watching the war film "Black Hawk Down."
Le's testimony also reveals a jailhouse in which deputies frequently interacted with inmate "shot callers," or bosses. At Theo Lacy, the shot caller for white inmates was known as "the wood rep," while the Latino inmate leader was "the southsider rep."
Le said shot callers would enforce jail rules with beatings called "taxations" and receive special privileges, such as sack lunches, fresh clothes and freedom to roam around the barracks.
He said jail guard Kevin Taylor, who is accused of instigating the attack on Chamberlain by telling inmates Chamberlain was a child molester, would tell shot callers about certain inmates flouting policy, and the shot caller would tell Taylor he would take care of the problem.
The transcripts were released two weeks after Superior Court Judge James A. Stotler found the Orange County Sheriff's Department had no legal standing to keep them secret.
The transcripts show that Taylor sent and received 22 cellphone text messages around the time Chamberlain was being beaten to death.
Witness Sonja Moreno, a guard, testified that on the morning after the beating, Taylor told her that while the beating was taking place, he had just "glanced" at the television in the guard station and was doing paperwork with another guard.
