By Nick Schou
OC Weekly
ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — If there’s one thing both prosecutors and defense attorneys seem to agree about in the trial of five former Theo Lacy Jail inmates charged with the brutal Oct. 5, 2006 slaying of John Chamberlain, it’s this: there was a “culture of fear” inside F-Barracks West, the minimum security dormitory for non-violent offenders where Chamberlain perished after being pummeled, stomped, sexually assaulted and tortured by dozens of inmates.
As more than one prosecution witness testified today, prisoners inside the barracks lived in a constant state of fear of the race-based gangs that controlled F-West, who had the tendency to punish inmates with severe beatings for nothing worse than being pulled out of the line to chow hall by deputies for talking without permission. One witness, Richard Riley, a convicted felon serving time in Theo Lacy when Chamberlain died, said he’d had numerous jail stints before, and had even been to state prison, but had never witnessed anything like F-West.
“It was dangerous,” Riley, who himself was beaten by the gangs for an unspecified breach of jail rules, testified. “I had been in jail before and this just seemed like guys were more critical of why you were there,” he added, referring to the fact that the gangs routinely harassed incoming inmates for their pending charges. Asked if Riley felt that the deputies, specifically Kevin Taylor, who the defendants in the ongoing murder trial insist “green-lit” the assault on Chamberlain, were responsible for the pervasive fear in F-West, a clearly nervous Riley answered, “I would say they had a part in it.”
Full Story: John Chamber Murder Trial Days Four & Five: “A Culture of Fear”