Inmate testimony in Vaughn trials could be used against state in civil suit

Testimony that prosecutors are using to seek murder convictions in the Vaughn prison riot trials could later be used against the state in a civil suit that claims prisoners have been "systematically" brutalized since the uprising.

"Once they came in, it was an assault," inmate Eugene Wiggins told the jury, recounting the moments after police ended the hostage standoff Feb. 2. 

Testimony of inmates like Wiggins, who were in James T. Vaughn Correctional Center's Building C where the uprising occurred, was prosecutors' primary evidence in the first of four criminal trials seeking more than a dozen murder convictions in the death of Correctional Officer Lt. Steven Floyd, who bled to death during the uprising.

While pointing fingers at their fellow inmates from the stand, some of those prisoners, who are not charged with crimes associated with the siege, also spoke candidly of being assaulted by officers following the uprising.

Some 18 hours after a group of inmates used coordinated violence to confine the building's guards into closets, inmate Richard McCane was laying on the floor of his cell when police retook the building. He told the jury police bound his hands with zip ties and picked him up by the hood of his jacket, which ripped.

"I fell on the ground and they were kicking me, yelling, 'stop resisting, stop resisting,'" testified McCane, who is a plaintiff in the civil suit.  

He said he was hit with the butt of a gun, thrown on the asphalt outside and hit in the head more times than he could recall. 

"They beat me up real good," McCane said. 

Wiggins and McCane were two of about a dozen inmate witnesses called by prosecutors to testify against Dwayne Staats, Jarreau Ayers and Deric Forney, whose trial ended with mixed verdicts last month. 

Wiggins and McCane are also two of 115 inmates, most of whom were housed in Building C at the time of the uprising, who are named plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit filed last month.

That lawsuit seeks class-action status. It says that inmates were beaten, tortured and abused, sometimes sexually, by correctional officers and other law enforcement when Building C was retaken by authorities. 

Claims of abuse also came from inmate witnesses called by defendants to testify. 

Deshawn Drumgo, one inmate called to testify by Ayers, who represented himself at the trial, told the jury his ribs were broken and police targeted his nose with pepper spray.

Despite playing no role in the hostage standoff, he said he didn't feel like a victim of it until he was beaten by "a line" of correctional officers. Any chance of him cooperating with authorities in their investigation ended quickly, he said. 

"I was beaten for two or three hours and I’ll be damned if I’m going to help anybody that beat me," Drumgo told the jury. "That is the mentality of a slave." 

There was also physical evidence introduced at trial that pointed toward inmate injuries. Once inmates were taken from the building, they were made to lay down in an asphalt yard outside. 

Trial evidence included pictures of pools of blood in that yard. State Police officials testified that they were not aware of any injuries to correctional officers that occurred in the yard, indicating the blood came from inmates. 

The men standing trial for planning and executing the uprising are not charged with any crimes against inmates. State Police Detective David Weaver, the case's lead detective, said the blood in the yard was not a focus because the takeover occurred  inside the building. 

"Whatever happened outside, I’m not saying that is not a concern, but we were focused on inside," Weaver told the jury when asked about the blood in the yard. 

Along with the claims of physical abuse, the lawsuit also claims the Department of Corrections did not return innocent inmates' belongings from the ransacked prison building. 

McCane, who was not charged and was called by prosecutors to testify, told the jury he had trouble filing legal paperwork after the uprising because "everything I owned got thrown out in the trash." 

Fires were lit inside the building so some items would have been smoke damaged and water logged from the prison's sprinklers. 

Staats, who was convicted of murder and other charges in the first criminal trial, said he saw pictures of his belongings taken by detectives after the building was retaken.

On the stand, he testified that he never got his personal items back and said "so my stuff was deliberately thrown away."

"But we'll get to the bottom of that," Staats said, looking up at Weaver or prison officials seated in the courtroom behind the detective.

The statements about abuse and personal belongings were more or less volunteered as defense attorneys and prosecutors did not intensely question the inmates on their treatment. 

That is likely because such testimony was not pertinent to the culpability of the men on trial in planning or carrying out the uprising. But there are 13 inmates yet to be tried with three additional trials scheduled for the first half of 2019. 

Stephen Hampton, a Dover attorney who filed the civil lawsuit, said he'd expect more to come out through defense attorneys questioning of inmates, particularly about their frame of mind when offering statements to police. 

The credibility of inmate witnesses was frequently questioned by the defense during the first trial in various ways.

Hampton claims inmate witnesses are being "coerced" into cooperation by ongoing pressure from correctional officers.

Pressure on inmates came through the withholding of basic provisions like bedding, footwear, soap, toothbrushes and adequate food, he said. Following the uprising, The News Journal chronicled inmates struggles to get proper medical care. 

Pressure has also come from abusive shakedowns, a term for inmate cell and body searches, he said. 

His lawsuit claims inmates were asked to touch their genitals and then place their hands in their mouths without being given the opportunity to wash their hands. At least three inmates described in written accounts how correctional officers placed items into their anus, according to the lawsuit. 

Trial testimony touched on the shakedowns as well. 

Wiggins, an inmate witness, told the jury he saw Ayers, a defendant, playing a part in the uprising. Ayers, who represented himself and cross examined Wiggins, seized on the fact that Wiggins had previously told police he didn't see Ayers' face. 

Upon questioning from Ayers, Wiggins admitting to telling a correctional officers months after the uprising that the shakedowns were making him "nervous," that he knew they were because of the Building C takeover and that he just "wanted everything to be over." 

"You would agree on the back end of that is when you started giving names?" Ayers asked, prompting Wiggins to confirm.

What the jury believed from the inmate witnesses was mixed, given they returned different verdicts for the three defendants. 

Hampton said he believes the inmates' reports of abuse as detailed in the lawsuit because of the volume of letters he's received and smaller pieces of corroboration. 

For example, he heard that inmates responsible for protecting a prison counselor held hostage throughout the standoff were singled out for protection by correctional officers.  

"I've heard that from numerous sources plus the guys who were protecting (the counselor) didn't get beat up," Hampton said. 

The statements by inmate witness Anthony Morrow would seem to corroborate that. He testified to sitting with the counselor, trying to find her a radio station she liked and when that failed, singing to her. She testified that his voice was "angelic." 

Morrow, who is not a plaintiff in the civil suit, testified that police "mishandled a few of the inmates for sure." 

He told the jury that one tried to put a knee into his neck, but an officer he knew as “Cornbread” came to get him and told the aggressive officer “not him." 

Hampton, who has frequently sued the Department of Corrections on behalf of individual inmates, said the alleged rights violations that his lawsuit claims — like denial of proper healthcare, arbitrary rules and punishment for inmates and abusive searches — were happening prior to the uprising.

The alleged violations echo complaints by Staats, who told the jury he recruited so-called lifers to take over the building with the goal of bringing the inhumane treatment of prisoners in Delaware to the attention of Gov. John Carney. 

Letters to Carney and the Delaware Department of Justice from Hampton blowing the whistle on what he sees as abuse from March of last year are included as exhibits to the complaint. 

He said corrections officials have not taken the situation seriously, nor properly investigated allegations of abuse because none of his clients have been interviewed. 

"These are crimes these guys are committing, many crimes, violent crimes," Hampton said. "If you are saying that is permissible, then you are saying you can take them out and summarily shoot them in the back of the head." 

When asked to respond to allegations of physical abuse, whether any correctional officers have been disciplined or whether officials have denied allegations of abusive shakedowns, Department of Correction Spokeswoman Jayme Gravell said the department could not comment on the lawsuit. 

Hampton said the lawsuit is about stripping impunity enjoyed by correction officers and the officials that enable them.

"If your rights are taken by a state official, the state is not going to step in and do a darn thing for you," Hampton said. "They are going to defend the official that violated you or that abused you." 

The state paid $7.5 million to settle another lawsuit filed by Floyd's family and others taken hostage. The lawsuit claimed state officials put money before safety at the Department of Correction for more than 16 years.

Through the settlement, the state did not admit wrongdoing. 

Carney is named as a defendant in Hampton's lawsuit as are a host of prison officials, wardens and correctional officers.

Attorneys from Wilmington firm Richards, Layton & Finger, who are representing Carney, filed a stipulation Thursday noting they represent Carney, and that Hampton does not oppose giving the governor until February to respond to the complaint. 

Jury selection in the next criminal trial associated with the Vaughn uprising is scheduled to begin in the second week of January. 

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.

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