HEAR NO EVIL, SEE NO EVIL...

Feds Liked Inmate's Testimony, Until She Cried Rape

In the dead-to-rights view of S.R., the victim of multiple sexual
assaults and rapes at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, the U.S.
attorney's office here saw her as ``a very credible witness. I was
competent. But then when I needed them, I was mentally ill. I was
incompetent.''

Complaints Dismissed

S.R. is referring to the lack of interest federal prosecutors showed
in pursuing complaints that three detention center guards sexually
assaulted her, and that a fourth guard raped her several times when
she was being detained to testify at drug-trafficking trials between
2002 and 2005. Federal Bureau of Prison officials wrote her off as
''mentally incompetent'' after she reported the assaults, which began
during her first stint at the center. A prosecutor who brought her to
Miami to testify has no recollection of what, if anything, she did
when she received a letter informing her of S.R.'s
allegations.

U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga recounted these damning
allegations and much more in her order that finds federal prison
authorities ``did have notice of the illegal conduct taking place, and
were woefully deficient in addressing it and giving S.R.
protection.''

S.R., a North Carolina native who was released in 2006 after serving
10 years in federal prison on drug charges, was brought to Miami four
times to testify in drug-trafficking cases. At the detention center,
she was forced to do ''sexual favors'' in exchange for routine prison
privileges such as getting clean underwear and using the telephone,
Judge Altonaga wrote. Once, after she reported the abuse, she was put
in solitary confinement. The guards had her completely at their mercy,
and no one higher up seemed to care.

After she was released, S.R. filed a $5 million liability suit against
the government. She settled with three guards, but lost the suit on a
technicality. The two-year statute of limitations had expired.
Ultimately, three of the guards left the center. One, whom S.R. says
raped her, was fired after pleading guilty to sexually abusing another
inmate. Part of his plea deal involved the prosecutor agreeing not to
charge him with assaulting S.R. He received a one-year sentence. Two
others were fired for misconduct. The fourth still works at the center
and denies the assault allegations.

Stop Potential Assaults

What about the federal prison officials who refused to give a
cooperative witness the benefit of the doubt? What of the U.S.
attorney's office that did nothing to protect its own witness? Sure,
Judge Altonaga found Bureau of Prisons and detention center officials
at fault, but what does that do for S.R.? What does it do to deter
future assaults by prison employees? Nada.

The feds botched their jobs and escaped all accountability on this
one.