Lawsuit over inmate death adds to scandal surrounding guards at California prison
The mother of a Sacramento-area inmate allegedly stabbed to death by three other prisoners is suing over his death, claiming in court papers that guards at California State Prison, Sacramento, were complicit in the slaying and allowed the attackers to make a “practice run” the week before.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Sacramento federal court, is the second to be filed to date over the Dec. 12, 2019, death of inmate Luis Giovanny Aguilar, 29, who was stabbed to death as he sat handcuffed to a chair in a day room at the prison, also known as New Folsom.
“While we have not yet received the lawsuit, CDCR is committed to identifying and responding to any potential safety and security issues throughout the department, including thoroughly reviewing all allegations of staff misconduct and ensuring people are held accountable if allegations about their actions are found to be true,” CDCR officials said in a statement. “The circumstances surrounding this incident are currently under investigation so further details cannot be discussed.”
But the lawsuits are part of a scandal enveloping prison staff at the facility, which has seen two whistleblowers die since October 2020 and is the subject of an FBI probe into allegations of cover-ups and violence against inmates by guards.
The latest lawsuit was filed by Ma Rosario Bueno Aguilar, the dead inmate’s mother, and names the prison, Warden Jeff Lynch and other unnamed guards as defendants.
The allegations closely adhere to an earlier lawsuit filed by Aguilar’s minor daughter last October, which stemmed from Sacramento Bee stories about the federal probe into the prison and allegations of wrongdoing by guards there.
The new lawsuit says Aguilar was mentally impaired and was serving a four-year sentence for vehicle theft and attempting to evade an officer when he was brought into a prison day room the morning of Dec. 12, 2019, and had his hands and feet cuffed to a chair.
“Two other inmates, Cody Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez, were similarly cuffed next to Mr. Aguilar,” the lawsuit says. “At around 10:00 a.m., Mr. Aguilar was brutally stabbed by Taylor and Rodriguez while he was handcuffed to the chair unable to run or escape the danger. Mr. Aguilar died a short time later.”
Two sources have told The Bee there is video of the attack, and the lawsuit says Taylor and Rodriguez were able to remove their restraints and retrieve a weapon “from another location on the second floor, and return to attack Mr. Aguilar who remained restrained and cuffed to the chair.”
Sources have also said there is a separate video that the lawsuit says reveals “a ‘practice run’ a week earlier wherein prison guards DOES 1 through 20 observed and/or allowed the inmates to practice how they would carry out the stabbing, including getting out of their restraints.”
The suit claims guards lied to inmates about Aguilar, falsely telling them he was a child sex offender “knowing this would cause him to be targeted for physical assault.” The unnamed guards also are accused in the lawsuit of reporting that Aguilar’s slaying was gang-related.
The suit contends guards “had a duty to intervene to protect Mr. Aguilar from violence at the hands of the inmates who stabbed him.”
“They had a further duty to intervene to stop the spreading of the false information that he was a child molester, to stop the inmates who stabbed him from doing a practice run a week earlier, to stop handcuffing Mr. Aguilar to a chair with two violent inmates, to stop the inmates from releasing themselves from restraints, to stop one of those inmates from going to another location to retrieve a weapon, returning with it, and stabbing Mr. Aguilar, who could not run or escape as he was cuffed to a chair,” the suit says.
The earlier lawsuit, filed on behalf of Aguilar’s daughter in October, says he “was murdered because the guards viewed him as a ‘problem inmate’ and sought to make an example of Aguilar by facilitating his murder.”
Taylor, Rodriguez and a third inmate, Dion Green, were charged in Aguilar’s death. Taylor pleaded no contest in April 2020 and was sentenced to 102 years. Charges are pending against Rodriguez and Green.
The prison also has been the subject of separate allegations of guard misconduct, including claims by inmate Brant Daniel, who is awaiting trial in an Aryan Brotherhood racketeering case, that guards planted a homemade knife in his cell and have harassed him and opened his legal mail. Daniel’s attorneys have been fighting to get him moved from the prison to another facility, claiming guards have threatened to kill him.
Some of those allegations stemmed from reports by Sgt. Kevin Steele, an in-house detective at the prison who warned higher-ups that officers had planted weapons and drugs in cells and falsified documents.
Steele had been discussing his allegations with two lawyers suing the prison and was placed on leave earlier this year and banned from the prison. Steele, 56, died in August in Missouri in a case that was ruled a suicide.
His death followed the accidental drug overdose death of another whistleblower, Valentino Rodriguez, who was a friend of Steele’s and had told him of allegations that other officers were planting drugs and weapons on inmates.
Steele and Rodriguez worked together in the prison’s Investigative Services Unit, and prison officials say they have replaced all members of the unit since allegations about guards began to surface.
Two other guards also have been charged by federal prosecutors in an alleged cover-up involving the death of a 65-year-old inmate in 2016 at the prison.
Ashley Marie Aurich pleaded guilty last January to falsifying records and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating the inmate’s death. She faces sentencing in January.
A second guard, Arturo Pacheco, is accused in court papers of yanking the inmate’s legs out from under him as he was being escorted in handcuffs in the prison, leading to him crashing face-first to the floor. The inmate died in a hospital two days later.
Pacheco faces two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and two counts of falsifying records, and his next court hearing is scheduled for February.
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Lawsuit over inmate death adds to scandal surrounding guards at California prison."