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Pondexter testified that he was once a sadistic "search and escort" officer in the Corcoran SHU. He ran with a gang of guards called the Sharks and his specialty was to beat and strangle prisoners. "We would show them 'the Corcoran way' and tell them this was a 'hands on' institution," said Pondexter. He was eventually fired for brutality.

But Pondexter's testimony was later picked apart by defense attorney Katherine Hart, who showed that Pondexter was on vacation the day Dillard was moved into the Booty Bandit's cell. Pondexter had previously testified he was working that day. "You had a faulty memory about that, didn't you?" asked Hart.

"Yes," Pondexter admitted, squandering much of his credibility in the process.

Afterward, a vexed and embarrassed Pondexter was heard complaining to a friend that Pierson hardly prepared him for testimony, briefing and questioning him for only 25 minutes, just before he took the stand.

Barankin refuted that claim, saying prosecutors spent "a considerable amount of time preparing Mr. Pondexter for the trial." When asked about why they did not check records that showed Pondexter was not even working that day, Barankin said, "The defense had access to information we didn't have. We found out the same time [the jury] did."

Also missing from the state's case was much of the detail that had emerged during grand jury testimony and during last year's legislative hearings. According to both these inquiries, the story of the Dillard rape and ensuing coverup went as follows: Dillard and Robertson -- both members of the Piru Bloods, a Los Angeles street gang, though separated by a 20-year age difference -- had first come into conflict at Tehachapi State Prison in 1992. There Robertson made sexual advances on Dillard and was rebuffed. Soon thereafter Robertson, already a documented jailhouse rapist, was transferred to the Corcoran SHU.

In 1993, Dillard kicked a female guard and was sent north to Corcoran. In his grand jury deposition, Robertson told how Sgt. Robert Alan Decker showed him a list of four proposed cellmates. Robertson chose Dillard and a few days latter, while lying on his bunk, looked up to see the protesting Dillard being thrust into his cell by two officers.

Dillard explained the rest when he took the stand: "Before I knew it, we were getting into it. We were tussling and he said he was going to rape me. I tried to fight him off but I couldn't. He raped me," said, Dillard, his voice breaking. Dillard finally escaped the cell when guards came to take Robertson to an unrelated disciplinary hearing. Desperate, Dillard refused to re-enter the cell.

Finally, Dillard told an officer that Robertson had raped him. The officer filed a report and passed it on to a sergeant, but the report was lost. Dillard was then examined by a prison medic, who saw no sign of rape. A doctor examined Dillard and ordered a "rape kit" -- a full internal rape examination -- but the order was quickly and mysteriously countermanded and Dillard was never properly examined. After getting a new cell, Dillard started sending administrative complaints, known as "602s," about Sgt. Decker and the rape to officials in Sacramento.

Records show that on June 16, 1993, Dillard suddenly withdrew his complaint and stopped his follow-ups. That was the same day that Decker signed in for a visit with Dillard on his new cell block. According to Dillard, Decker gave him a simple choice: Drop the 602, or go "back in the cell with Robertson."

Little of this chronology was spelled out during the trial, though, and none of the defense witnesses seemed to remember much -- all of which undermined the prosecution's case.

"We went over everything, covered everything, a lot of documents," the jury foreman, who declined to give his name, told the Los Angeles Times. "In the end, there was just too much reasonable doubt. There just wasn't a lot of evidence that supported what the prosecutor was trying to prove."

That was the fault of the prosecution, said prisoners' rights attorney Catherine Campbell. "My impression was that [Pierson] was on automatic, doing a job that was distasteful to him," she said. "He had no moral passion. The lapses, particularly the one with Pondexter -- that sort of thing throws a witness off center."

The attorney general's office stood by Pierson, saying that he had inherited an impossible situation. "The football field is littered with Monday-morning quarterbacks," said Barankin. He agreed that "most right-thinking people should feel a sense of moral outrage based upon the evidence that we were privy to. Unfortunately, the jury was not allowed to hear all that evidence."

The issue of the code of silence may yet be raised in court. Eight other guards stand trial in March on federal charges for shooting Corcoran inmates.
salon.com | Nov. 22, 1999

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