By Elaine Silvestrini
Tampa Tribune
TAMPA, Fla. — A newly released video showing a detention deputy striking an inmate proves that the recent dumping of a paralyzed man out of his wheelchair by another detention deputy was part of a pattern of abuse at the Orient Road Jail, the inmate’s attorney said Monday.
Virlyn B. Moore represents Marcella Pourmoghani-Esfahani, who was repeatedly struck by a deputy in the holding area of the jail on Nov. 11, 2006, according to the video released by Moore.
“This is not an isolated incident, this wheelchair thing,” Moore said. “They prey on the women and the disabled.”
Moore said the incident started after Pourmoghani-Esfahani was told to take her foot off a chair. Like the recent incident involving the man in a wheelchair, Pourmoghani-Esfahani’s encounter with a deputy also was captured on video.
The video shows the deputy pulling Pourmoghani-Esfahani out of a chair by hair and then striking her repeatedly as Pourmoghani-Esfahani is curled into a ball and clinging to the deputy’s leg. Parts of the incident are obscured as other deputies walk into the frame. Several deputies help restrain Pourmoghani-Esfahani, cuffing her hands and feet, with her legs bent behind her.
“The deputy grabbed her for no reason whatsoever, and no provocation, by the hair while she was seated,” Moore said. The deputy “pulled her off a chair, wrestled her to the ground and slammed her over and over again, her face to the concrete.” Other deputies who were present, the attorney said, did not come to Pourmoghani-Esfahani’s aid.
Moore said his client was taken “bleeding and gasping for breath” to the holding area, where she suffered a seizure. Initially, he said, “her problem was ignored,” until “finally, a nurse was called,” and she was resuscitated and taken to a hospital.
She was later returned to the jail after being treated, Moore said.
Pourmoghani-Esfahani was later charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, Moore said, but that charge was dropped after a video of the incident came to light.
According to an arrest affidavit provided by Moore, the deputy involved, Shanna Marsh, said Pourmoghani-Esfahani was agitated and disruptive. The deputy wrote in an incident report that Pourmoghani-Esfahani broke free when the deputy tried to escort her to a holding cell, and grabbed the railing of a chair and refused to let go.
The deputy wrote that it was “necessary to redirect her to the floor to regain control. While on the floor, she grabbed my right leg with both hands and refused to let go. I then delivered several defensive strikes to her upper body in attempt to get her to release her hold on my leg.”
Moore said the incident report, when compared with the video of the incident, demonstrates “a giant coverup.”
Moore said he mailed a lawsuit Friday to be filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa against Sheriff David Gee, Marsh and Hillsborough County. As of Monday, the complaint had not yet been entered into the court’s electronic filing system. The federal courthouse was closed Monday for President’s Day, a federal holiday.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said the department is reviewing the video and would not be able to comment until Tuesday. A message left for Marsh at the Hillsborough County Courthouse, where she now works, was not returned.
Marsh’s personnel file reflects a number of positive performance evaluations. One evaluation, two weeks after the incident with Pourmoghani-Esfahani, has an entry under the category of Use of force/Restraint: “Deputy Marsh is knowledgeable with the procedures of the use of force continuum. She has shown and demonstrated her knowledge and skills in incidents were the use of force has been utilized. All incidents of use of force this rating period have been justified.”
Pourmoghani-Esfahani was in jail for driving without a license and violating her probation on a charge of driving under the influence, Moore said. Those cases have been resolved, according to the attorney, who said his client has completed her probation.
Copyright 2008 The Tampa Tribune