Florida corrections chief focus of civil trial in prison death

• Indifference to widespread abuse is alleged in the 1999 death of inmate Frank Valdes.

Two years ago, four guards at Florida State Prison -- the home of Death Row and Florida's most dangerous prisoners -- were acquitted of kicking and stomping an inmate to death. The outcome was so decisive that charges were dropped against other guards, leaving the death of Frank Valdes unpunished. Now, in a quiet courtroom overlooking downtown Jacksonville, Valdes' case is back, this time in the form of a civil suit filed by his father, Mario Valdes. And while the eight guards who faced criminal charges are again facing trial along with several others, the former warden at Florida State Prison is the new focus. James Crosby stands in his office in 1999 as warden of Florida State Prison, in front of monitors he had installed less than two weeks after Frank Valdes death to show activity in the facility's X-Wing. James Crosby, who faced no charges in the criminal trial but is a defendant in the civil action, now is Gov. Jeb Bush's handpicked secretary of the Department of Corrections. One former warden has testified Crosby fostered a "culture of abuse" at Florida State Prison in Starke, and other witnesses for Valdes' family also have criticized his actions. "It is my opinion that Mr. Crosby . . . was aware of the widespread abuse of force manifest at FSP and that he failed to take the steps necessary to protect Mr. Valdes and other inmates," Chase Riveland, former head of the Colorado and Washington departments of corrections, wrote in a review of Florida State Prison. "He clearly was deliberately indifferent to all of the information and indicators that would lead a concerned warden to investigate and put a stop to the abuses." Greg McMahon, the assistant state attorney who prosecuted the guards in 2002, questioned why Bush appointed someone with an inmate death hanging over his head to the state's top corrections position last year -- especially after the guards acquitted at trial were denied their request to return to corrections. [more]