Johnson Frees Woman Abused by Jail Guards (NM -- unbelievable must read!)

When a person is sentenced to six-years for a probation violation for a non-violent crime and the jail guards that sexually assaulted her in prison collectively receive less total time than she does, our legal system is seriously out of whack. Governor Johnson did the right thing.

Sitting in a court room on sentencing day can be a real eye opener.

I was doing that very thing in Pheonix years ago. A mexican fellow received one year for shoplifting a ham. The next guy before the judge was white and received one year probation for driving over a mexican in a cross walk and killing him.

I remember being quite amazed at the time.

"Justice is what the Judge had for breakfast"

But the example you point out is simple bigotry.

"A mexican fellow received one year for shoplifting a ham. The next guy before the judge was white and received one year probation for driving over a mexican in a cross walk and killing him. "

What does this have to do with the article? Belinda Dillon doesn't sound like an Hispanic name.

No, it's not a hispanic name. But why should facts interfere with his white-hating, liberal, blame-America agenda?

What does this have to do ...

Sentencing has a lot to do with how a particular judge feels at sentencing time.

I used to think of the court room as despensing justice . . . I now think of them despensing punishment by fiat.

This article is just another example of that.

According to an investigative report by the Journal in 2001, she testified that the guards fondled her breasts and vagina through a food porthole in the cell door.
Just curious. If Belinda Dillon is in her cell and the guards are outside, why would Belinda place her "breasts and vagina" at the food porthole?

My thoughts exactly.

She may have done those things voluntarily figuring she could turn it into a get out of jail free card.

why would Belinda place her "breasts and vagina" at the food porthole?

I was wondering the same thing. Maybe they refused to feed her unless she did? Quite cruel.

That was what I wondered, too...maybe she hoped they'd provide her with drugs...

Agreed. But maybe her sentence was correct and they should have gotten much more time. This story implies her sentence was to harsh. She's hardly "a victim of the drug war and this state's drug problems" She's a criminal. So are the guards. They should have gotten 18 years instead of 18 months.

Of six law-enforcement officers implicated in the assault.....

Somehow I'm doubting that six different guards where all doing the same thing without her either coercing it or inviting it.

I think this woman may have just found a new scam to be used on the system and the Gov. fell right into it.

Tuesday, January 16, 2001

Blood in Cell IDs Assault Suspects

By Mike Gallagher
Journal Investigative Reporter

It doesn't make much difference whether the jail is new or old, the rape of inmates in county lockups is costing taxpayers.

And guards have done some of the raping. The Journal found more than two dozen rape cases in recent years that led to criminal charges filed against corrections officials.

The average settlement for female inmates sexually assaulted by corrections officers at the Bernalillo County Detention Center is more than $100,000. There have been more than half a dozen such cases in recent years.

Nobody knows how much Belinda Dillon's case is going to cost Doña Ana County.

The 23-year-old woman tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. She wrote the names of the officers she said assaulted her in blood on her jail cell floor.

Two officers have been convicted of molesting her. Charges against others are pending.

Dillon was arrested for credit-card fraud in May 1998 and was released in December.

Initially she was kept in E-pod, the women's unit. Then she was transferred to a medical observation cell that was not in the line of sight of a hall video camera.

She testified at the criminal trial of one officer that guards would talk to her over an intercom.

"Do you want to take off your clothes?" she said guards asked her. "Would you like to dance around?"

It was "the same thing they all said."

The officers continually talked to her over the intercom — "asking me if I would let them both have intercourse with me at the same time. The conversation — they went on about how they wanted to do me for quite some time."

She testified that one officer fondled her breasts and vagina by sticking his hand through the food port. She stood there while he did it.

"He had control of whether I slept, whether I ate," she told the jury. She said she was afraid of being raped and did what she was told.

Dillon's testimony is similar to that of the female inmates who filed lawsuits for being sexually assaulted in the San Juan County Jail.

Joe Romero, an attorney who represented most of the dozen inmates who filed claims, said all the women assaulted by guards felt they had no choice but to submit because of the total control the officers had.

"That's why it's a felony for a guard to have even consensual sex with an inmate," Romero said.

Dillon didn't report the food port incident, or others with different officers, at the time they occurred.

"I was afraid ... retaliation. Knowing I was going to be there for a long time, and that anything could happen between then and the time I was released from there."

When Dillon tried to commit suicide, she wrote the names of the officers in her blood on the cell floor. But first she wrote: "Who raped Belinda? Who did Belinda? Who didn't do Belinda?"

She testified that she then wrote, in blood, the names of every guard she had encounters with. The "note" went all the way to the cell door.

Dillon was found by corrections officers making a security check. She testified that one of the officers responding was one of her assailants, and that "terrified" her because he would see the bloody message.

"They put some butterfly tape over the cuts, and took my uniform, took the mattress out of the room and everything else that was in the room, toilet paper and everything, and threw me back in there the way it was with the blood writing on the floor," she said.

Later that day, she was asked to write a statement about what had happened to her. She did, listing the officers she said had sexually assaulted her over the past weeks.

She gave a 28-page diary to jail officials that recounted the assaults.

But none of that was forwarded to local law enforcement authorities — not the diary, not the photographs of the bloody message and not Dillon's statement.

Dillon was released from jail and more than a year passed.

Another female inmate contacted the Sheriff's Department in 1999 with allegations that women inmates were being sexually assaulted.

The subsequent investigation led to Dillon and to the indictments of six corrections officers. Two have already been convicted.

Dillon's lawsuit is pending in federal court. * Sexual attacks in county jails, including some that involve guards, cost N.M. taxpayers

While I agree Miss Dillon might have deserved more time in prison, I don't think she deserved to be humiliated like this.

From the Albuquerque Journal --

Tuesday, January 16, 2001

Blood in Cell IDs Assault Suspects

By Mike Gallagher

Journal Investigative Reporter

more than two dozen rape cases in recent years that led to criminal charges filed against corrections officials.

average settlement

more than $100,000.

more than half a dozen such cases in recent years.

"He had control of whether I slept, whether I ate," she told the jury. She said she was afraid of being raped and did what she was told.

felt they had no choice but to submit because of the total control the officers had.

But none of that was forwarded to local law enforcement authorities — not the diary, not the photographs of the bloody message and not Dillon's statement.

__________________________

Her complaint was not forwarded to authorities as it should have been. It was ignored. That's illegal.

Just curious. If Belinda Dillon is in her cell and the guards are outside, why would Belinda place her "breasts and vagina" at the food porthole?

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of, too.
This news article is so poorly written that it is difficult to follow, and tougher yet to find any reason to agree with this scumbag governor.

Dillon attempted suicide while in jail, writing the names of the officers in blood on the floor of the jail cell.

LOFL! Yeah. Okay. I believe this.

She later filed a civil lawsuit against the county, which has been settled....

Translation: She's a useless crack whore and a con-artist.

....said Paul Kennedy, who with Mary Han represented Dillon on probation violations and in the federal lawsuit.

So is the scumbag lawyer.
And notice the plural in "probation violations".

All this revolves around the woman's story. The story makes no mention of corraborating witnesses. Perhaps it happened the way she said. Perhaps she's a whacked-out crackhead who created the story to take revenge on the guards for not supplying her with drugs after she offered to "do" them in exchange for drugs

By the way, this scumbag Governor looks like he is making some pretty wild leaps to try to turn this piece-of-garbage crack whore into a "victim" of the "war on drugs".
No sale, governor.

Her complaint was not forwarded to authorities as it should have been. It was ignored. That's illegal.

That's true, but it still doesn't mean she was telling the complete truth.

Perhaps you are right but..

Dillon was released from jail and more than a year passed. Another female inmate contacted the Sheriff's Department in 1999 with allegations that women inmates were being sexually assaulted. The subsequent investigation led to Dillon and to the indictments of six corrections officers. Two have already been convicted.

We have been having quite a spate of bad Corrections Officers here on Long Island.
I don't always believe the authorities.

Another female inmate contacted the Sheriff's Department in 1999 with allegations that women inmates were being sexually assaulted. The subsequent investigation led to Dillon and to the indictments of six corrections officers. Two have already been convicted.

I would say that there was pretty strong evidence, which was "never forwarded to local law enforcement authorities", for this to have been instigated by investigation, and result in two (so far) subsequent convictions.

BTW, Lancey...I hope you get in a similar position some day...you might learn a little about compassion.