By Scott Sandlin
Albuquerque Journal
BERNALILO COUNTY, N.M. — A civil lawsuit by two female prisoners allegedly raped in jail by guards accuses Bernalillo County of failing to take preventive steps, despite knowing that prison sexual assault “presented a serious and substantial risk at the Metropolitan Detention Center.”
The lawsuit filed in 2nd Judicial District Court alleges the county and then-MDC Sgt. Torry Chambers acted with “deliberate indifference” to exposing the women to unreasonable risks of harm.
Chambers was criminally charged in December with raping two inmates and helping another to rape one of them. He was subsequently released on $100,000 bond and placed on summary suspension without pay from his MDC job.
Jail spokeswoman Nataura Powdrell said Thursday that Chambers remains on suspension without pay, but had no comment on the lawsuit because it had not been served.
The case against Chambers has not been indicted but is scheduled for presentation to the grand jury, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Anthony Townes, also named as a defendant and alleged to have committed an inmate rape at MDC, is serving an 18-year prison sentence for raping four other women while he was a guard at Camino Nuevo Correctional Center. Those rapes are the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit that is pending before U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson.
Also named in the new lawsuit, filed April 13, are former jail Director Ron Torres and former County Manager Thaddeus Lucero. The lawsuit alleges civil conspiracy by Chambers and Townes and sex trafficking by them and the county, negligence, gross negligence and recklessness. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
Albuquerque attorney Mark Fine, who filed the new lawsuit, takes aim at jail management for not correcting deficiencies identified in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of inmates that resulted in a settlement in 2005.
As part of the settlement, the lawsuit says, the county agreed to follow the American Correctional Association’s performance-based standards for adult detention facilities and to permit an audit to check on compliance.
The first audit report in 2005 found MDC was chronically overcrowded, the lawsuit says, and not in compliance with American Correctional Association standards or its own policies on inmate safety.
The U.S. Department of Justice published findings in 2008 that ranked MDC third in the nation for inmate sexual victimization, nonconsensual sexual acts and staff-oninmate sexual victimization, according to the lawsuit.
“Of all the places they looked at, MDC was the worst for inmate rape,” Fine said.
The previous year, DOJ found 16 incident reports of sexual assault, including a staff-on-inmate assault in the infirmary.
An infirmary assault by Townes forms the basis of one of the claims in the lawsuit. He was housed in the MDC infirmary, which held both male and female inmates, according to the lawsuit.
“Placing an accused sexual predator in a mixed gender infirmary” and empowering him with privileges, the lawsuit contends, amounts to the county enabling and facilitating the rapes.
Copyright 2011 Albuquerque Journal