Nearly a decade ago, investigators thought they were close to busting a network of dirty deputies at the Denver jail system they believed were conspiring with inmates, prosecution records show.
Inmates alleged that deputies smuggled in drugs and other contraband on their behalf. They boasted of deputies snitching out rival gang members. They said the inmates ran the place.
The allegations share some similarities with the ones currently rocking the Denver Sheriff Department, which resulted in Denver paying $3.25 million to resolve a former inmate’s lawsuit. That case also involves accusations of collusion between deputies and inmates.
The 2005 investigation ended with just one conviction. A deputy pleaded guilty to smuggling marijuana and other contraband to Denver jail inmates and allegedly making
$50,000 annually on the side.
It shows the Denver jail system has raised suspicions for years among other law-enforcement agencies, but also underscores the difficulty of bringing charges in such cases.
“It’s always hard to build a case when your witnesses are criminals,” Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.
This time, U.S. District Court Judge John Kane is urgingfederal authorities to investigate the Denver sheriff’s and Denver police departments after he found faults with internal-affairs investigations into attacks on an inmate.
Jail system out of control
In August, the City Council approved a settlement
to resolve the allegations. That brought an end to a federal lawsuit filed by former inmate Jamal Hunter. Documents filed in the case portray Denver’s jail system as out of control, a place where deputies allowed inmates to administer beatings to other inmates, let inmates brew alcohol from fruit smuggled into cells and told gang members about their rivals in the jail.
The deputies didn’t provide protection, former inmate Darnel Anderson testified in a sworn affidavit.
“Rather, they encouraged inmates to go after one another. … They opened the closets for fights,” he said. “They knew about the altercations because they could hear everything. They would let fights go on.”
Inmates attacked Hunter in a cell in Pod 3A of the Downtown Detention Center known as the “Terror Dome,” knocking him out and scalding his thigh and genitals with 200-degree water. The lawsuit alleged that Deputy Gaynel Rumer was friendly with the attackers, encouraged and enabled the attack, and ignored Hunter’s screams for help.
“The guards were not in control of the jail,” said one of 13 former inmates who gave affidavits for the Hunter lawsuit. “The gangs were in control of the jail.”
The 2005 criminal case included accusations of collusion between deputies and inmates.
Deputy Solomon Mikael, who went by the jail nickname of “Oh Boy” and worked as a bouncer at some of the favorite gang hangouts in Denver, boasted to inmates that he was a secret member of the Black Gangster Disciple gang from Chicago.
Mikael was 280 pounds and sported a shaved head and a tattoo on his arm of a male and female lion curled into the yin-yang symbol.
One gang member said Mikael helped cover up a gang shootout he witnessed on the streets, according to the prosecution file.
Inmates identified others at the jail they said conspired with criminals, including a sergeant they said carried a secret copy of the Black Gangster Disciple bylaws.
“If you got a lot of money, I mean anything is possible,” one inmate told investigators in 2005 as he identified deputies he said were on the take and dating relatives of gang members. “Basically, there’s a price on everything, and, from what I understand, the deputies aren’t making that much money.”
Records showed investigators pushed hard after snaring Mikael in a sting operation to get him to offer up others working at the jail.
“What we’re doin’ is we are giving you an opportunity to help yourself …” said Joe Montoya, then an internal-affairs lieutenant at the Denver Police Department.
“All right,” responded Mikael, whom they had recorded six days earlier taking $250 of marked bills from an undercover female officer in a diner parking lot to smuggle marijuana and tobacco into the jail for a gang member.
“… because you do need some help,” Montoya continued.
“Right,” Mikael said.
“OK, and, ah, we are interested in tryin’ to clean up things at this jail,” Montoya said.
Robert Fuller, an investigator with the Denver district attorney, followed up, boring in.
“You think we appeared today magically?”
“You don’t have a concept,” continued Fuller, a transcript of the taped interview shows. “You haven’t wrapped your arms around it yet. So, when we ask you questions we probably know 99 percent of the answers. So, again, what other officers, what other sergeants, what other captains, what other majors are involved in this?”
Mikael, who later pleaded guilty to smuggling contraband into the jail, provided murky hints, offering up a handful of deputy names but no specifics.
Montoya is now commander of the police district that covers southeast Denver. He and Fuller declined to comment.
Hundreds of gang members
Fuller had tangled before with the Denver sheriff’s department.
As a sergeant at the Adams County Sheriff’s Department and a member of a Metro Gang Task Force, he worked to get Denver sheriff’s Capt. Edward Maes fired in 2003 for dating the sister of two known members of the Mexican Mafia gang. The city of Denver had alleged Maes gave to a gang a police database listing hundreds of gang members.
Maes was reinstated to the sheriff’s department as a deputy and paid $84,149 in back pay after a career-service hearing officer ruled his firing was unjustified. The officer found that Maes dated the woman before her brothers had been arrested and also ruled that the city hadn’t proved the database allegation.
Despite suspicions of a more widespread conspiracy involving other deputies, there wasn’t enough evidence for additional criminal prosecutions in the Mikael case, Morrissey said.
“We caught Mikael in the act. We didn’t have to rely on criminal and confidential informants. We had physical evidence. We had eyewitnesses in law enforcement,” Morrissey said.
Additional leads were pursued.
“We ran them into the ground, and we weren’t able to produce any of the evidence we knew we would need to proceed against anyone else,” Morrissey said. “This investigation was over.”
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denverpost.com or twitter.com/chrisosher
