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Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were convicted Monday of beating a mentally ill inmate to “teach him a lesson” in March 2010, then conspiring to cover it up.
A federal jury convicted Bryan Brunsting, 31, and Jason Branum, 35, of falsifying records and violating the inmate’s civil rights, according to the Los Angeles Times. The guards each face 40 years behind bars in a federal prison when they are sentenced in August.
The brute cops now number among 21 current or former members of the sheriff’s department to be convicted as part of a federal investigation into the county’s jail system, which is the largest in America.
Josh Sather, a decorated sheriff's recruit, witnessed the assault just days after starting his job at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. He testified against his former colleagues.
Sather said Brunsting accused the inmate — who was not identified in the trial — of leaving his cell without permission and talking back to guards. Brunsting said he was “going to teach him a lesson,” Sather testified.
Sather said he and several other deputies led the inmate down a hallway, away from surveillance cameras, and Sather initially joined them in attacking him. He relented, though, when he saw the man wasn’t resisting.
But the other deputies continued hitting, kicking and pepper spraying the inmate as he screamed and cried on the ground, prosecutors said. The assault ended with the deputies spreading the inmate’s legs and kicking him in the genitals.
Sather said that once the violence ended, the deputies held a private meeting to come up with a justification to report.
Prosecutors said the deputies weren’t just teaching a grim “lesson” to the inmate — they had one in mind for Sather, too.
“The second lesson was for Joshua Sather, the honor recruit, the future of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Brandon Fox said in closing arguments Monday.
“That lesson was simple: This is how you beat an inmate. This is how things are done at Twin Towers. It was as much a lesson as much as it was a test.”
The jury deliberated for only 90 minutes before convicting the deputies.
Brunsting is set to face trial again later this year for civil rights charges in another alleged attack at Twin Towers, from 2009.
With News Wire Services