Retaliation - News Articles

Prisoner reluctantly pleads guilty to attack
He says prison guards want to cover abuses
By GINA TENORIO
Staff Writer

Monday, December 20, 2004 - Countless hours of research and months of court appearances boiled down to one stressful moment for a prisoner who faced one of the most important questions of his life Monday.

Doubling over in frustration, Robin Adair grimaced and groaned, "Oh God.' Moments before, he tried to enter a "no contest' plea to the objections of Deputy District Attorney Kelly Mallen.

Adair stopped, shook his head. Several minutes later he finally surrendered, "guilty.'

Adair, a prisoner at the California Institution for Men in Chino, claims he never committed the crime of assaulting a corrections officer. He contends guards made up the attack because he'd tried to report abuses at the prison.

The convict's answer to Judge Linda M. Wilde came during a scheduled preliminary hearing Monday at the Chino branch of the San Bernardino Superior Court.

Adair, who faced his third strike and a possible life sentence, reluctantly agreed to accept a plea agreement.

He pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon other than a firearm, a lesser crime than the original battery by a prisoner charge. Although it's a felony, it does not count as a strike.

Adair is expected to be released from prison in December 2005, his original release date.

"We understand the risks,' Andrew Haynal, Adair's attorney, told the judge before the plea was entered. "It is with reluctance that we go ahead with this.'

Adair faced a possible trial for assaulting California Institution for Men corrections officer Jorge Olivar.

He and Haynal wanted to put several staffers from the institution on the stand to face Adair's claims that the Feb. 23, 2003, assault never happened.

Adair insists officers retaliated against him because, as head of the prison's Men's Advisory Council, he'd been trying to blow the whistle on abuses he saw in the prison.

Adair insisted that Olivar knocked him down while the guard and several members of the staff insist Adair was the aggressor.

"He's no angel,' said Adair's sister, Alene McKeone, 51. "But he didn't do this.'

He has a prior conviction for robbery. In 1999, he was arrested and eventually convicted on a domestic abuse charge. He was sentenced to eight years in the Chino institute where he's been since.

Since the incident, Adair has fought vigorously against the charge, requesting documents, and turning down a previous four-year deal.

"I feel that he was forced to plead guilty,' McKeone said. "And I feel that the judge could have given him five minutes for a statement.'

Editorial: Payback time
Corrections harasses whistle-blower again
- (Published July 30, 2004)

If you want proof that little has changed at the California Department of Corrections, look no further than the experience of whistle-blower Richard Krupp.

Not only has this career public servant been pushed around, now the department has sent a July 2 letter - signed by Julio Valadez, chief of the Community Correctional Facilities Administration Institutions Division - announcing an investigation of Krupp's wife, who has worked in the department for 25 years. Valadez's letter is dated nine days after Krupp testified before the Senate Rules Committee about management abuses in the prison system.

In 2002, both the State Personnel Board and the Office of Inspector General found that high-level managers in the department retaliated against Krupp when he exposed and documented out-of-control sick leave and overtime use by prison guards - and tried to convince the department not to mislead the State Auditor about these rising costs.

Instead of fixing the sick leave and overtime problems and punishing the retaliators, the department has pursued litigation against the personnel board and Krupp in an attempt to overturn these findings - at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.

Who continues to authorize this litigation? Krupp is a hero. He should be held up by the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as displaying the kind of honesty, openness and courage expected in the new Department of Corrections.

At the end of his rope - with the prospect of endless department-initiated litigation against him and now an investigation of his wife - Krupp has turned to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson. Henderson has threatened a federal takeover of the California prison system.

In a July 26 letter to the judge, Krupp wrote, "The administration(s) have refused to discipline their own managers found to have retaliated by two independent outside entities (State Personnel Board and Office of Inspector General). Not only did they refuse to take appropriate action, they mount a legal battle against the victim and his family. This is unconscionable behavior."

And just what is the investigation of Krupp's wife about? In his letter to Henderson, Krupp writes that she had written to her supervisor in May saying she believed the unit wasn't complying with car fleet expectations, and she recommended corrective action. Nothing happened. But nine days after Krupp testified before the Rules Committee, the Valadez letter announced an investigation against her. Given all the things that could be investigated in the corrections department, this choice of inquiries is astounding.

Since the department won't act to protect the whistle-blower and punish the retaliators, the governor's office needs to step in to end the litigation against the whistle-blower and examine the circumstances surrounding the investigation of Krupp's wife.

Otherwise, Henderson will have yet more grounds to consider federal oversight of the California prison system.

CHINO PRISON: He rejects a four-year deal though he faces the possibility of life in prison.

As an inmate at the California Institution for Men, Robin Adair said he tried to do the right thing.

He took Spanish classes and learned guitar. He wrote letters to his 12-year-old son, Nicholas, and mother, Barbara, to pass the time. He joined an inmate organization and advocated for new barbershop tools and more time on the yard.

But Adair, 46, of Upland, has also been charged by the San Bernardino County district attorney's office of assaulting Correctional Officer Jorge Olivar on Feb. 23, 2003. At the time, Adair was at the Chino prison serving time for a Los Angeles County conviction for spousal abuse - his second strike under the state's "three-strikes" law.

Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise
Barbara Adair and grandson Nicholas Adair, 12, hold an old photo of themselves with Robin Adair, a prison inmate and rights activist at the California Institution for Men in Chino.

"They're doing this because they haven't got a case and they know it," said Geri Silva, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Families to Amend Three-Strikes.

Kelly Mallen, deputy district attorney, confirmed that the four-year deal was offered, but said she wouldn't comment on Adair's case.

Adair said he thinks it's suspicious that the district attorney would offer a deal to a three-striker. He said he thinks the district attorney wants to make him and the case go away because he is attempting to expose corruption in the prison system.

Adair entered the Chino prison in 1996 and became the Men's Advisory Committee chairman in October 2002. He said he took the position to pass the time, and to possibly improve the quality of life for inmates.

But after he and other committee members blew the whistle in January 2003 on what he calls several "corrupt" officers, he said he became the target of a snowball of retaliation brought on by officers like Olivar who were resentful of his growing popularity in the prison yard.

In the following weeks, the Men's Advisory Committee office was searched several times, and Adair was written up twice for being confrontational, but each time the report was dismissed.

Adair continued his advisory committee duties, however, asking for things such as a list of food to be available during visiting hours and having work-assigned inmates taste inmate meals.

On Feb. 16, Adair filed a complaint against Olivar, accusing him of roughing him up during a body search. He also recounted what he said was a growing hostility Olivar had toward him.

Olivar claimed that seven days later, on a sparsely staffed Sunday in the administration office, Adair grabbed his shoulder and injured him. Adair was sent to solitary housing for months.

Olivar, in a disciplinary report, said Adair walked into his hand when he stuck it out to stop Adair. Olivar said he turned to get a lieutenant when Adair became upset and was grabbed by the inmate, so he swung back at Adair, hitting Adair's ear.

"He was angry with me for filing a complaint, and he couldn't wait for any opportunity to come after me," said Adair, who is now incarcerated at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga while he waits for his case to go to court.

Adair said he never grabbed Olivar and never became hostile toward him. When the officer struck him, Adair said he went down to the ground and yelled for a lieutenant.

Olivar could not be reached for comment. But Marty Aroian, the California Institution for Men's Peace Officer Association president, said there is no way Olivar or any other correctional officer would jeopardize his or her career by hitting an inmate.

"It gets risky if you choose to mix it up physically with an inmate," said Aroian, who has been a correctional officer for 19 years. "Why would you risk having someone see you, or losing to the inmate?"

John Ewell, 47, of South Los Angeles, was an inmate and member of the prison's Men's Advisory Committee from 2000 to 2002. He said that taking on the role of a committee representative automatically means placing a target on your back.

"You get labeled a snitch, by both inmates and the officers," said Ewell, who does not know Adair. "Officer Olivar had a reputation on the yard of bullying people and intimidating them. There were just some officers that you wanted to stay clear of."

Sgt. Arioma Sams, prison spokesman, said he has a hard time believing that officers would feel intimidated by an advisory committee chairman.

Lt. Charles Hughes, head of the California Staff Assault Task Force, an organization that seeks legal action against inmates who attack officers, said officers don't mess with advisory committee members, or any other inmate, because they don't want to risk an investigation.

Hughes does not know Olivar, but said that if Olivar had really wanted to beat up Adair and put him behind bars for life, Adair would have received more than just a cut on the ear.

"Inmates make claims against you all the time," said Hughes, who works at California State Prison, Los Angeles County in Lancaster. "So what? Why would we stoop to their level? Then we'd be just like them."

Adair's attorney, Andrew Haynal of Redlands, said Olivar's story just doesn't match up to his client's. He wonders why an officer would turn his back on an "angry" inmate.

Barbara Adair, 71, who takes care of her grandson Nicholas at her Upland home, said her son has been in and out of minor trouble, but never expected he'd end up looking at the possibility of life in prison.

She said he's a good father, despite being locked up, and used to volunteer at First Calvary Church in Ontario, dressing up as wrestler Hulk Hogan, whom he resembles.

"He always says he loves me and encourages me, even though he's not here," said Nicholas.