Florida corrections chief focus of civil trial in prison death
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 05:54PM
TheSpook
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]
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