James Westbrook, suspect in jail sex assault.
Posted on 07/24/2002 11:24:52 AM PDT by Drew68
Man, 19, says sex offender repeatedly assaulted him
James Westbrook, suspect in jail sex assault.
By Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News July 24, 2002
A 19-year-old man was repeatedly raped at the Jefferson County Jail after deputies placed him in a cell with a sex offender who had attacked another inmate hours earlier.
The Littleton man was sexually assaulted on Jan. 3 and 4 after he was placed in a cell with James Cornelius Westbrook, 20, who had just been convicted that day of aggravated robbery.
The man was placed in the cell about six hours after Westbrook attempted to sexually assault another inmate. That inmate screamed for help and was removed from the cell at 2:45 p.m. Jan. 3.
The man was placed in the cell at 9:19 p.m. Westbrook forced him to perform various oral and anal sexual acts, threatening to kill him if he didn't comply and keep quiet, according to court records.
The victim had been arrested for failing to attend classes required as a condition of his plea to drunken-driving offense.
It was his first time in jail.
"It's horrific," said his mother.
"He was incarcerated for noncompliance with an alcohol program. He should never have been in jail and to have this happen because of a mistake only magnifies the situation."
She said the family plans to file a civil lawsuit.
The victim and his family declined further comment until Westbrook's criminal trial is over.
The victim told deputies that Westbrook threatened "to snap my neck in half" if he didn't keep quiet, according to court records. When he moaned in pain during the assaults, Westbrook told him not to cry or he would kill him.
The victim cried when he reported the assaults to deputies, saying that "he didn't want to die and was scared he would die in that cell," according to court records.
Westbrook claimed the victim approached him.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Tallman said the Littleton man was placed in the cell because the allegations from the incident involving the first inmate were not documented. New deputies came on duty in a shift change and were unaware of the problem with Westbrook earlier that day.
The sheriff's department conducted an internal investigation after the second inmate reported that he had been raped, Tallman said.
She said two deputies were disciplined as a result and documentation procedures put in place to prevent similar problems in the future.
Tallman said deputies separated Westbrook and the first inmate without determining what happened.
"There was a verbal altercation between two inmates," she said. "No one sees what occurred. The deputies received completely different accounts from the two inmates."
Westbrook, who is black, said it was a racial incident. The other inmate said Westbrook tried to force him to perform oral sex.
"There are personality conflicts in our facility all the time," Tallman said. "They were separated with the deputies not knowing who was being truthful."
Westbrook was convicted of sexually assaulting another inmate at Mount View Detention Center when he was 13.
Westbrook has a long record of arrests for theft, robbery, fraud and drug charges, and was sentenced to five years in prison for attempted aggravated robbery in a 2000 Denver case.
He goes to trial Monday in Jefferson County District Court on 14 sexual assault charges.
The January Jefferson County incident was not his last.
He is accused of sexually assaulting another inmate April 3 at the Denver Regional Diagnostic Center where he was held awaiting placement in a state prison.
Investigators said that inmate was "highly upset and crying, throwing up in a wastebasket" as he described the attack.
The inmate said he didn't resist because he didn't want to be written up for fighting, according to court records.
Westbrook claimed the sex was consensual and produced a handwritten note he claimed was signed by the inmate, stating that they had agreed to have sex.
The inmate later said he didn't want to press charges against Westbrook because he was scared of him and feared retaliation from other inmates if he had a "snitch jacket."
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Heidi Hayes said she could not discuss why Westbrook was housed with another inmate at the diagnostic center with his history of attacking cellmates. The case is under investigation, she said, and expected to be turned over to the Denver district attorney.
Diagnostic center procedures require that inmates known to be a threat to other inmates be housed separately, she said.
But Hayes said inmates "come in with minimal information. We don't always get documentation when we get the inmate."
She said the center's staff depends on the police agency bringing in a prisoner to tell them any problems that merit separate housing for an inmate.
"If we get that kind of information, we start a file, flag it and separate them," she said.
She said she couldn't say what information DRDC received about Westbrook because of the pending investigation.
Westbrook arrived at DRDC March 13. He was charged with sexual assault against the two Jefferson County inmates in January.
Denver defense attorney David Lane said sexual assaults by inmates are a pervasive problem and jailers have a duty not to "throw inmates into the shark tank" if they have reason to believe another inmate poses a danger.
Corrections staff need to be aware of the danger and in these cases they should have been, Lane said.
"Here (Jefferson County) was on notice because he has assaulted another inmate, yet they double-celled him with another inmate on the same day," Lane said.
Lane said DRDC certainly should have been aware of Westbrook's problems at Jefferson County and the resulting criminal charges when he arrived there.
lindsays@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-5181
The "deputies" are incompetent, likely worthless, and should be fired and held accountable for their negligence.
Quite the gift for understatement.
He'd just have to go ahead and kill me. There are worse fates than death. At least I'd die fighting.
Sounds like that lesson was driven home.
I believe you mean "Louise", and please tell me you're not blaming the victim.
Is this story funny?
He was incarcerated for noncompliance with an alcohol program. He should never have been in jail
He should have been in jail because he disobeyed the court's reasonable and explicit order. He also should have fought back.
Why is this piece of garbage alive?
While trying not to inject levity into a horrible, horrible crime that was my first thought as well.
But then after I processed the story I got genuinely sick to my stomach.
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