Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Inmates at San Francisco's Hall of Justice said four deputies forced them into a 'gladiator-style' fight club by threatening physical and sexual violence against them.
San Francisco deputies organized ruthless “gladiator-style” matches between jail inmates and at least one trained his coerced fighter while threatening to rape him, a public defender said Thursday.
At least four deputies arranged the inmate-on-inmate fight inside the Hall of Justice jail by threatening their pressed fighters with physical and sexual violence and bribing them with food, Public Defender Jeff Adachi said.
Jail workers bet money on the brutal matchups, which left some inmates injured, including one man who suffered possible broken ribs, Adachi said. The deputies forced other inmates to gamble, too, and made the prisoner-spectators to use their food rations as bartering chips, the inmates alleged.
Deputies Scott Neu, Eugene Jones, Clifford Chiba and Evan Staehely have been placed on paid leave during the investigation, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“This is something that goes beyond any sense of common decency,” said Adachi, who described the fight club as “gladiator-style” and said it seemed like something out of “Game of Thrones.”
KNTV Inmate Ricardo Palikiko Garcia, who is 150 pounds, said he was twice forced to fight a 350-pound prisoner.
Adachi said ringleader Neu began arranging the fights last March.
“I don’t know why he does it, but I just feel like he gets a kick out of it because I just see the look on his face,” said Ricardo Palikiko Garcia, an inmate held on drug and gun charges who was coerced into a brawl. “It looks like it brings him joy by doing this, while we’re suffering by what he’s doing.”
Garcia — who is 5 foot 9 and 150 pounds — said he was twice forced to fight Stanley Harris, a 6-foot-tall, 350-pound inmate, NBC Bay Area reported.
Neu told Garcia the deputies would beat him up and spray him with Mace if he refused to fight, Garcia said. However, if Garcia battled Harris, Neu told him he’d be rewarded with food: “I got a cheeseburger if you whup his a--,” Garcia said.
“And he told me anything goes,” Garcia said. “Just don’t punch the face, so no one can basically see the marks. But anything goes, other than the face.”
Garcia won the first of the two brawls after he got his 350-pound competitor in a headlock. Neu then announced he’d be back the next day to “train” Harris, who he had apparently been betting on, he said.
“And he also told everyone that was there that there will be a round two and he does not like to lose money,” Garcia said.
During the next-day workout, Neu forced Harris to perform marathon push-ups. During the training session, the deputy threated to anally rape the inmate, telling him, “he’ll take my cheeks,” Harris told the public defender. In 2006, Neu was accused to forcing one female and two transgender inmates to perform sex acts on him, court records showed.
KNTV Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the fight club, which left some inmates with injures such as broke ribs, seemed like something out of 'Game of Thrones.'
During the second fight club match up, Garcia was so badly beaten that he likely broke ribs, he said. Neu told any injured fighter to lie to medical staffers about how they got their injuries, Garcia said.
A third inmate, Jonathan Christopher, said Neu and the other officers made the prisoners bet their jail food and clean laundry on the matches. But even if the inmates’ choice fighter won, the deputies would sometimes take away such items — the officers needed to give them to other inmates as payouts, Christopher said.
A lawyer for the deputies union said Adachi exaggerated the inmates’ claims while slamming the accusations against Neu.
“A deputy may have encouraged one inmate to work out. The deputy may have also allowed two inmates to wrestle in order to settle a dispute about who was stronger,” Harry Stern told the newspaper. “The 'wrestling’ was essentially little more than horseplay. There was no betting. The inmates were never forced to work out. They were never forced to fight.”
Harris and Garcia have both been transferred to another Bay Area jail, and San Francisco Sheriff's Department is investigating the allegations.
In 2012, 30 St. Louis inmates sued their jail guards also claiming they were forced into a “gladiator-style” fight club.
In 2009, three Rikers Island guards were accused of organizing a jailhouse fight club, after one inmate — who refused to participate in the brawls — was beaten to death inside the prison.
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