Assistant DA finds guards’ acquittal upsetting

“I feel like I let these kids down,” said 32nd Judicial District Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes on Friday morning, following a not guilty verdict by a jury of five women and three men Thursday evening that set free Floyd Howard and Darwin Brown, after the duo had been charged with molesting a juvenile inmate at the Terrebonne Juvenile Correction Center while they were employed as guards there in 2009. It was the first child molestation case Rhodes had ever lost.

Howard and Brown were two of a group of eight juvenile correction center guards who were arrested following a sex for favors scandal that rocked the jail’s reputation, led to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, and resulted in a required list of improvements which officials contend is more than 60 percent complete.

In June and July 2009, a grand jury returned indictments on a total of seven male correction officers and one female correction officer, including two supervisors, who were arrested and charged with exchanging sex for privileges and the mistreatment of juvenile inmates. The female officer was specifically charged with obstruction of justice.

Central to the case was Angelo Vickers, who was said by both prosecution and defense in the trial of Howard and Brown, to have had sex with female inmates in a control center out of view of security cameras and in a laundry room while other guards stood as lookouts. In exchange the female inmates involved were offered extra snacks, telephone privileges and other favors.

In his opening argument, Rhodes told the jury that Howard and Brown were among those that took advantage of troubled teens that lived in a world outside confinement where sex being used to gain what they wanted was common, but where men put in a position of trust and authority engaging in such practices was simply wrong.

“Innocence lost. That is what this case is about,” Rhodes told jurors. “[A 16-year-old inmate] didn’t realize she was being used as a plaything. [The world they live in] it’s all consensual, but that does not mean it is any more despicable.”

“These men were sworn to protect these children and they did the exact opposite,” Rhodes told the jury.

Defense lawyers Robert Pastor, representing Brown, and Harold Register Jr., representing Howard, argued that their clients were being set up by witnesses while Vickers was the man to be blamed.

They cast questions on the state’s evidence, including a lack of DNA connecting Howard and Brown to locations where sexual activity allegedly took place in the correctional center laundry room.

“Vickers is the scum of the earth … but to lump my client in with what others were doing is totally unfair,” Pastor said to the jury.

Pastor and Register cast doubt on the credibility of witnesses who have been in and out of legal trouble most of their lives.

“You want to hear evidence?” Register asked during the trial. “Good luck finding it. They got the one they want [meaning Vickers]. There is no evidence against Howard.”

A key witness who is no longer a minor, but whom Rhodes requested be identified only as a former inmate, gave graphic testimony of the trading sex for favors as part of “the game” – a code used inside the jail that identified illicit activities. She was also hesitant to tell her story in court as she lives in the same neighborhood as Brown and Howard and feared retribution for her testimony.

In the end, the jury took approximately 25 minutes to return two unanimous verdicts of not guilty for Brown and Howard.

“I would be lying if I didn’t say I was very disappointed,” Rhodes said. “I think it is a sad day for the kids that are in that facility and will be in that facility.”

Rhodes said his one consolation is knowing that the Department of Justice orders will set new requirements and standards for the juvenile detention center.

“From the very beginning when this case broke, our goal was to clean up the facility at all costs and make it a safer place. In that regard we have succeeded. The larger goal is accomplished,” Rhodes said. “All indications are … that facility is a different place than what it was. And they know it better stay that way.”

The assistant D.A. said that his strategy in the cases of Howard and Brown was to convince the jury that if his primary witness was telling the truth about Vickers then she was telling the truth involving additional defendants.

Vickers and another former juvenile corrections guard, Christopher Turner, were scheduled to plead guilty on Tuesday in exchange for testimony that means lesser sentences related to their part of “being in the game.”

Vickers has been jailed since being arrested in April 2009. Instead of facing a possible 20-year prison sentence, his could be reduced to seven years, of which he would only be required to serve five in state prison.

Turner was expected to plead guilty to malfeasance and simple battery. In exchange he was expected to receive a five-year suspended sentence and three years probation.

“In preparing for this trial, we brought in another victim, who is the victim in indictments on John Gathen and Chadwick Griffin. But she had also been perpetrated on by Vickers. She was also going to be a witness on the [Brown and Howard] trial. She was very scared. She ran away. And she is still out there,” Rhodes said. “You’ve got this 15-year-old kid afraid and she is so scared to testify that she has run away. She’s out on the street. I’m scared for that kid.”

Neither Pastor nor Register was available for comment as the week ended.

“I really can’t comment on [the acquittals] at this time. I don’t have enough information yet,” said the juvenile center’s director Jason Hutchinson late Friday.

It is unknown if Brown or Howard will attempt to fight for their former jobs or attempt to get back pay from the time they were arrested and fired from those positions until their acquittals.

“I would venture to say that these defendants would be very reluctant to have another look at their activities. I doubt that they would want anyone else looking at [this],” Rhodes said.

Gathen and Griffin are scheduled for trial beginning on March 21. A trial date has also been set for former juvenile corrections guard Darren Carter on April 18.

A not guilty verdict Thursday for defendants Floyd Howard and Darwin Brown marked the first time Assistant District Attorney Mark Rhodes has ever lost a child molestation case. MIKE NIXON