PART 2 OF ARTICLE ON CROOKED FOLSOM OFFICAL CDC
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Bunnell on phone tapes
To skirt Bunnell's barriers, the investigators said they placed a recording device on the telephone in an administrator's office where Miranda worked as a clerk. They said their goal in tapping the phone was to identify the suspected dealer's "customer base" in the prison.
"One day, to our great surprise, Chief Deputy Warden Bunnell's distinctive voice came on the line with Miranda," the investigator, Gilbert R. Bravo, said in the declaration.
In February and March 1992, Bunnell's voice turned up a total of six times in conversations with Miranda and Tewksbury, Bravo's declaration said. According to transcripts of the recorded conversations, three of Bunnell's conversations with Miranda - whom the chief deputy warden addressed as "Chito," his nickname - concerned an upcoming parole hearing for Barker.
At issue was the memorandum in Barker's file that implicated him in a 1985 inmate slaying, according to documents filed in Bunnell's criminal case in San Joaquin Superior Court.
"It's lost," Bunnell was recorded as telling Miranda, who responded with laughter.
"Great, yeah, that's good," Miranda said.
In another conversation with Miranda, Bunnell warned the inmate about the beatings of child molesters in the vocational shops, according to the transcripts.
"Goddamn, man," Bunnell said. "We need to take that s---to the yard."
In his taped conversation with inmate Tewksbury, Bunnell and the inmate are heard laughing and cracking jokes about other convicts and staff members and their sexual proclivities. At one point in the conversation, Tewksbury expressed a longing to join Bunnell on a vacation to Mexico.
"I wish I could go with you, boy," Tewksbury said.
"I'm telling you, one of these days," Bunnell responded.
Tapes ruled inadmissible
Prison officials said they know of few, if any, instances of high-ranking managers - especially at the level of the chief deputy warden - compromised as much as Bunnell was accused of being.
"The facts of the case out of (Deuel) are incredible," Corrections attorneys wrote in documents filed with the Personnel Board supporting his firing. "They read like a script from some old black-and-white prison movie where the inmates are in cahoots with the corrupt wardens, and the distinction between their respective roles are murky at best."
Carl Larson, since retired, was the prison system's Northern California regional administrator when the probe unfolded. A 30-year Corrections employee, Larson said in a declaration filed with the Personnel Board that what he heard on the tapes represented "some of the worst cases of undue familiarity and preferential treatment I have observed."
But the Corrections and attorney general cases against Bunnell were defeated when the defendant's attorneys persuaded the 3rd District Court of Appeal to throw out the tape recordings.
The panel of appellate court judges ruled that the tapes, which formed the foundation of the criminal and administrative charges, were inadmissable because investigators did not record them in the ordinary course of their duties to probe inmate crimes. Instead, the justices ruled that the tap constituted an extraordinary event that needed a court's preapproval.
With the tapes ruled inadmissible and the evidence resulting from them suppressed, a San Joaquin Superior Court judge threw out the three-count criminal complaint state prosecutors had filed against Bunnell. The State Personnel Board reversed Bunnell's dismissal and, in June 1996, ordered the Department of Corrections to put him back to work.
Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach said the department then "had absolutely no choice" but to find a position for Bunnell. In 1996, Bunnell was assigned to Folsom, where he worked without incident, sources said, until the riot on April 8, 2002.
Inmates from the rival southern Hispanic and northern Hispanic prison factions had been locked down in their cells for three months after a yard fight, according to the Oct. 3, 2003, Office of the Inspector General's report on the riot and its aftermath.
The report found that prison managers had worked out a plan to release the factions "gradually, tier-by-tier, to allow them to mingle in small numbers so as to limit any violence."
But when it came time to put the plan into effect, the inspector general's report said, the release "was not conducted in accordance with procedures that had been agreed to earlier by the supervisory staff."
Correctional officers let the convicts outside in much larger numbers than anticipated - 30 to 40 northerners and 40 to 50 southerners, according to the report. That approach, the report said, was ordered by Bunnell.
Within 10 minutes, the report said, a riot ensued.
A widely circulated videotape taken by prison cameras shows the southern inmates gathering at one end of the yard. Sources said the southerners were angry after sustaining the worst of the violence in the fight with the northerners three months earlier.
A correctional captain, Douglas Pieper, who has since committed suicide - "my job has killed me," he said in his departing note - was standing next to Bunnell, overlooking the yard from above. Pieper can be heard on the tape asking Bunnell if he should "put the yard down," meaning order all the inmates to lie face-first on the ground.
"Not yet," Bunnell responded on the videotape.
Bunnell confirmed to the inspector general's investigators that he was the one issuing the direction, according to the report.
Seconds later, the battle was on, with dozens of southerners rushing a smaller contingent of northerners and pummeling them with their fists. It took officers 90 seconds to gain control.
Refusing the captain's suggestion to force the inmates to the ground "seemed to indicate that Bunnell had bypassed an opportunity to forestall the riot," the inspector general concluded.
Bunnell's attorney, Wishek, however, said that Bunnell had gathered intelligence on his own that led him to believe that "these two factions would try to resolve their differences."
O'Dea, the officer who hurt his back in helping break up the disturbance, doesn't buy the lawyer's explanation.
"It was very dangerous for staff and inmates alike," O'Dea said, "to be under the leadership of somebody of his caliber."
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Bunnell on phone tapes
To skirt Bunnell's barriers, the investigators said they placed a recording device on the telephone in an administrator's office where Miranda worked as a clerk. They said their goal in tapping the phone was to identify the suspected dealer's "customer base" in the prison.
"One day, to our great surprise, Chief Deputy Warden Bunnell's distinctive voice came on the line with Miranda," the investigator, Gilbert R. Bravo, said in the declaration.
In February and March 1992, Bunnell's voice turned up a total of six times in conversations with Miranda and Tewksbury, Bravo's declaration said. According to transcripts of the recorded conversations, three of Bunnell's conversations with Miranda - whom the chief deputy warden addressed as "Chito," his nickname - concerned an upcoming parole hearing for Barker.
At issue was the memorandum in Barker's file that implicated him in a 1985 inmate slaying, according to documents filed in Bunnell's criminal case in San Joaquin Superior Court.
"It's lost," Bunnell was recorded as telling Miranda, who responded with laughter.
"Great, yeah, that's good," Miranda said.
In another conversation with Miranda, Bunnell warned the inmate about the beatings of child molesters in the vocational shops, according to the transcripts.
"Goddamn, man," Bunnell said. "We need to take that s---to the yard."
In his taped conversation with inmate Tewksbury, Bunnell and the inmate are heard laughing and cracking jokes about other convicts and staff members and their sexual proclivities. At one point in the conversation, Tewksbury expressed a longing to join Bunnell on a vacation to Mexico.
"I wish I could go with you, boy," Tewksbury said.
"I'm telling you, one of these days," Bunnell responded.
Tapes ruled inadmissible
Prison officials said they know of few, if any, instances of high-ranking managers - especially at the level of the chief deputy warden - compromised as much as Bunnell was accused of being.
"The facts of the case out of (Deuel) are incredible," Corrections attorneys wrote in documents filed with the Personnel Board supporting his firing. "They read like a script from some old black-and-white prison movie where the inmates are in cahoots with the corrupt wardens, and the distinction between their respective roles are murky at best."
Carl Larson, since retired, was the prison system's Northern California regional administrator when the probe unfolded. A 30-year Corrections employee, Larson said in a declaration filed with the Personnel Board that what he heard on the tapes represented "some of the worst cases of undue familiarity and preferential treatment I have observed."
But the Corrections and attorney general cases against Bunnell were defeated when the defendant's attorneys persuaded the 3rd District Court of Appeal to throw out the tape recordings.
The panel of appellate court judges ruled that the tapes, which formed the foundation of the criminal and administrative charges, were inadmissable because investigators did not record them in the ordinary course of their duties to probe inmate crimes. Instead, the justices ruled that the tap constituted an extraordinary event that needed a court's preapproval.
With the tapes ruled inadmissible and the evidence resulting from them suppressed, a San Joaquin Superior Court judge threw out the three-count criminal complaint state prosecutors had filed against Bunnell. The State Personnel Board reversed Bunnell's dismissal and, in June 1996, ordered the Department of Corrections to put him back to work.
Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach said the department then "had absolutely no choice" but to find a position for Bunnell. In 1996, Bunnell was assigned to Folsom, where he worked without incident, sources said, until the riot on April 8, 2002.
Inmates from the rival southern Hispanic and northern Hispanic prison factions had been locked down in their cells for three months after a yard fight, according to the Oct. 3, 2003, Office of the Inspector General's report on the riot and its aftermath.
The report found that prison managers had worked out a plan to release the factions "gradually, tier-by-tier, to allow them to mingle in small numbers so as to limit any violence."
But when it came time to put the plan into effect, the inspector general's report said, the release "was not conducted in accordance with procedures that had been agreed to earlier by the supervisory staff."
Correctional officers let the convicts outside in much larger numbers than anticipated - 30 to 40 northerners and 40 to 50 southerners, according to the report. That approach, the report said, was ordered by Bunnell.
Within 10 minutes, the report said, a riot ensued.
A widely circulated videotape taken by prison cameras shows the southern inmates gathering at one end of the yard. Sources said the southerners were angry after sustaining the worst of the violence in the fight with the northerners three months earlier.
A correctional captain, Douglas Pieper, who has since committed suicide - "my job has killed me," he said in his departing note - was standing next to Bunnell, overlooking the yard from above. Pieper can be heard on the tape asking Bunnell if he should "put the yard down," meaning order all the inmates to lie face-first on the ground.
"Not yet," Bunnell responded on the videotape.
Bunnell confirmed to the inspector general's investigators that he was the one issuing the direction, according to the report.
Seconds later, the battle was on, with dozens of southerners rushing a smaller contingent of northerners and pummeling them with their fists. It took officers 90 seconds to gain control.
Refusing the captain's suggestion to force the inmates to the ground "seemed to indicate that Bunnell had bypassed an opportunity to forestall the riot," the inspector general concluded.
Bunnell's attorney, Wishek, however, said that Bunnell had gathered intelligence on his own that led him to believe that "these two factions would try to resolve their differences."
O'Dea, the officer who hurt his back in helping break up the disturbance, doesn't buy the lawyer's explanation.
"It was very dangerous for staff and inmates alike," O'Dea said, "to be under the leadership of somebody of his caliber."
