By Troy Graham
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The public defender for accused rapist Jose Carrasquillo asked in February that he be transferred from a Philadelphia jail because the guards there were targeting him for “almost daily harassment and physical abuse,” according to court records.
Two months later, Carrasquillo got into a fight with correctional officers, a confrontation his aunt said left him in a coma for days with head injuries. The aunt, Isabel Carrasquillo, said relatives had not been allowed to see him.
The FBI has launched an investigation and requested records related to the incident involving Carrasquillo, a sergeant, and four officers, authorities said.
Carrasquillo, 27, was hospitalized at Aria Health-Torresdale Campus until Monday, when he was transferred to the Philadelphia prison system infirmary, said Robert Eskind, a prisons spokesman.
Carrasquillo had been held in an administrative segregation block for high-profile inmates at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.
In the motion, his attorney said that “if [Carrasquillo] remains at Curran-Fromhold his life will continue to be in danger.”
Carrasquillo got into a fight when he refused to leave his cell on April 11, Eskind said. A handmade weapon was found inside the cell, he said.
Eskind said jail officials were unaware of any complaints Carrasquillo made to the courts about harassment and abuse, but added, “We don’t do that. That’s not something that happens.”
Carrasquillo had at least one other documented confrontation with a jail guard. In December, he was charged with aggravated harassment and simple assault for spitting on Ivan Marshall, an officer he encountered while being escorted to the medical unit, according to court records.
Marshall “took the defendant down using an open hand to the facial area to prevent the defendant from spitting again,” the records said.
The charges for spitting on the officer are pending.
Carrasquillo has been jailed since June, when he was charged with the rape of an 11-year-old girl in Kensington. Investigators said he approached the girl as she was walking to school, forced her into an alley, and attacked her.
Police circulated a surveillance photo of Carrasquillo, and within hours a group of residents surrounded and beat him.
In his Feb. 8 motion asking that Carrasquillo be moved to another jail, his attorney said jail guards had abused him since he arrived there.
The attorney, Constance Clarke, said she and a social worker both have noted “on multiple occasions . . . numerous bruises on his arms, neck, and face.”
A judge was scheduled to consider the request during a pretrial conference April 28.
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