By Elaine Silvestrini
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA — A newly released video showing a detention deputy striking an inmate proves 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 is shown in the video being struck by a deputy in the holding area of the jail on Nov. 11, 2006. The attorney released the video Monday and said he is filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the deputy, the sheriff and the county.
“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 Brian Sterner, a quadriplegic dumped from his wheelchair at the jail, 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 the 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 the inmate’s aid.
“The blood was pouring from my nose and mouth,” Pourmoghani-Esfahani said at a press conference Monday night. “I could not breathe. I was dying.”
Moore said his client suffered a seizure. Initially, he said, “her problem was ignored,” until “finally, a nurse was called,” and she was taken to a hospital.
She was treated and returned to the jail, Moore said.
Pourmoghani-Esfahani was later charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, Moore said, but he said 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 a chair railing 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.”
Pourmoghani-Esfahani said that does not explain away the nature of how she was beaten.
“I did not need to be beaten in the back of my head with closed fists,” she said.
Moore said the incident report, when compared with the video of the incident, demonstrates “a giant coverup.”
Col. David Parrish who oversees Hillsborough’s jail services, said Pourmoghani-Esfahani was uncooperative from the time she entered the jail and that Marsh took defensive measures because she feared Pourmoghani-Esfahani was going to bite her as she held her leg. Parrish said it was not the first time Pourmoghani-Esfahani had gone through booking.
“That was the eighth time she’s been with us” since 1992, Parrish said. Prior arrests of Pourmoghani-Esfahani ranged from DUI, battery, domestic violence, driving with a suspended license, battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest with and without violence, Parrish said.
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.
Moore said the timing of his client’s lawsuit is “entirely coincidental” with the national attention garnered by the incident involving Sterner. He said the suit was filed 15 months after the incident because it took that long to go through the legal process.
The video shown by news staions was not complete and Marsh’s actions were shown out of context, Parrish said. The full-length video of the incident will be released by the sheriff’s office on Tuesday, he said.
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 where 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