The Washington Post, by Loretta Tofani

Most Victims of the Sexual Attacks Are Legally Innocent

Kevin Parrish, a 20-year-old student from Upper Marlboro, was arrested on a drunk driving charge at 3 a.m., Feb. 20 and taken to the Prince George's County Detention Center. He was to wait there for a few hours, until his mother could arrive with $50 to bail him out.

But his mother came too late.

While Parrish was behind bars, two inmates grabbed him and shoved him into a cell, out of sight of the guards. For 10 minutes, they slugged him in the stomach and beat him on the face. Then one of them exposed himself, tore Parrish's pants, and demanded that Parrish give him and four of his friends oral sex.

When it was all over, Parrish went to the jail's medic with blood pouring from his face, arms and chest. His nose was broken and he had two black eyes.

An hour later, about noon, his mother paid the bail bondsman and Parrish was released.

While detention center officials believe there are fewer than 10 rapes a year among male inmates in their Upper Marlboro institution, rapes and violent sexual assaults such as the one Parrish experienced occur much more frequently, according to a number of guards and inmates.

In on-the-record interviews, 10 guards, 60 inmates and one jail medical worker said there are approximately a dozen incidents of forced sex each week in the jail for men awaiting trial or sentencing.

The victims of these violent acts are, of course, in custody at the time, but most are legally innocent citizens. About 70 percent of the jail's 450 inmates are awaiting trial, some on such charges as drunken driving, shoplifting and trespassing. They are in jail because they do not have enough money to post bond or have not been able to contact a bail bondsman -- during the weekend or at night -- and they are easy prey.

The problem of jail rapes is so well known that judges sometimes put men they consider vulnerable on probation rather than send them to the jail after they are convicted.

"This is the kind of thing that's so bad you shut your mind to it," says Prince George's County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Femia. "It's easier to blot it out than to come to grips with the fact that it's happening in our own society."

According to guards and inmates, rapes and sexual assault cases in the county jail share certain characteristics:

* They occur in cells out of sight of any guard. Before the assaults, inmates make sure cell bars are covered with newspapers and turn up their radios. Even when a victim screams for help, guards often do not respond until it is too late. Guards do not patrol the cells for hours at a time.

* They are gang rapes, in which three or four men typically approach an inmate and kick, beat and punch him. Then they force sex on him. About two cases per week involve anal penetration, the rest oral sex.

* The rapes are particularly violent. In one case, rapists admitted to jamming a toilet bowl brush and toothbrush into the rectum of their victim. Some beatings have been so vicious that victims have been taken to Prince George's General Hospital with broken ribs, broken bones and punctured lungs.

* Many of the rapists are charged with or convicted of murder or armed robbery and are placed in cell blocks with those awaiting trial on nonviolent charges.

* The rapists are usually heterosexual; many have wives and children. In almost all cases, the victims also are heterosexual.

* The victims normally do not press charges against their attackers. Even in cases where rape victims say they wanted to, they say guards or police discouraged them from doing so. As a result, the rapists rarely are punished.

It is not known whether the rape problems in the Prince George's County jail are more or less serious than in other jails throughout the country. Few people have studied the problem of jail rapes; those who have studied it tend to produce many more theories than facts. Perhaps as a result, the problem of jail rape is not a public issue; only rarely is it even a topic of discussion at conventions for jail officials, according to penologists.

Yet it is a problem with serious consequences. Men who were raped in the county jail say the experiences left them shocked, disoriented and unable to concentrate on their upcoming trials. Of 15 victims who were interviewed, three were later treated in mental institutions.

"It was like I needed someone to take my hand and guide me," said victim Gary McNamara of his reactions after his rape. "I've never been like that before. I've always known what to do."

The inmates who escape rape often do so by behaving much more violently in the jail than they normally do. After months of such behavior, they said in interviews, they became capable of committing crimes that were far more serious than the ones that sent them to jail.

The rapists offer different motives for their actions. "It's more a violence thing than a sex thing," explained Francis Harper, a convict who admits to raping three men in the jail. "When they cage a person, it makes a person real bitter and angry, and you don't know exactly who you're angry at. So you have these feelings and you take them out on somebody else."

On the surface, it may appear that race is a factor, but the rapists suggest that color masks the real issue: Those who learn to act violently on the streets--black or white--continue to act violently in jail, raping men who are not used to defending themselves.

The director of the Prince George's County Detention Center, Arnett Gaston, says that rapes and sexual assaults occur in his jail, but he believes that estimates of 12 a week are an exaggeration. He said he knows that eight rapes occurred last year and six the previous year. "If you remove some of the emotionality that surrounds this issue, you'll see it's not a serious problem," Gaston said in an interview.

One reason Gaston may think there are so few rapes, according to guards, inmates and a jail medical worker, is that the vast majority of jail rapes and sexual assaults are not reported. Some former inmates said in interviews that they raped a number of men in the county jail who never reported the rapes. Some victims said that they did not tell guards about their plight because they believed that the guards could not protect them from retaliation by the rapists or the rapists' friends; other former inmates said that they had witnessed rapes and sexual assaults that were not reported to guards.

Even when rape victims tell guards or medical technicians that they were raped or sexually assaulted, the jail does not consider their cases "reported" unless the victim presses charges or unless there is clear medical evidence, according to jail spokesman Jim O'Neill.

Guards say they know the rapes and sexual assaults occur in large numbers because many of the fights they see or hear about involve sexual violence. In interviews, 10 current or former guards and a jail medical worker said they have come to accept that rape is a normal part of life in the detention center. "At first it shocks you, but then after a while it's just another rape," said one current guard, Gerry Giovinazzo. "Even though you don't like it to happen, you get used to it because it happens all the time."

Guards say they are unable to protect inmates from rapes because the poorly designed jail makes it impossible for guards to see into most cells from their watch posts. The guards say they could minimize that problem by patrolling the cells more often than once every eight hours, but that there aren't enough of them to do that. Also, they say, there would be fewer rapes and sexual assaults if inmates had individual cells. Because of overcrowding, they say, most of the cells are left unlocked to give inmates room to move about.

On each of the three shifts, 15 guards watch 400 male inmates. (The jail grounds also house about 25 men on work release and about 25 women. The exact numbers change daily.) Ten guards watch the inmates on a constant basis from the control booths, where they can see into common areas but not into the cells -- where most rapes occur. The other five roam the corridors of the jail, transporting inmates and responding to emergencies. A total of 150 guards work at the jail, but many of them perform administrative duties and do not guard inmates.

The guards, who work alone, say that even when they are aware of rapes in progress they cannot protect the victims because they are afraid for their own safety.

"Being alone, seeing a situation where you have several angry inmates, they [the guards] kind of wait until they get backup and by then whatever is transpiring is over with," says Maj. Gerald Rice, who was the jail's security director until last year and still works there.

Jail employes aren't the only ones in the justice system who recognize jail rapes as a way of life. Judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in Prince George's County say they are aware that inmates are often raped at the county jail.

"One of the reasons you shouldn't break the law is that you get raped in that jail," says Prince George's Circuit Court Judge David Ross, a highly regarded juvenile court judge and a former delegate to the Maryland legislature.

As the following six cases illustrate, rapes occur because guards aren't around or don't respond to cries for help, or simply feel unable to help because there aren't enough of them and their view of the cells is limited.

The Cook

Tyrone Blair, 26, a restaurant cook who lives with his sister and brother-in-law in Hillcrest Heights, got into an argument on Nov. 6, 1981, with his brother-in-law, Robert Lee McKnight.

As a result, McKnight put Blair out of the house and Blair threw a rock through McKnight's living-room window, shattering it, according to court documents.

McKnight called police, and Blair was charged with malicious destruction of property. When Blair failed to show up for his trial, he was sent to jail in lieu of $2,500 bond.

On Jan. 8, two days after Blair entered the jail, he was moved to section 2B. One hour after he entered the cell block, around 2 p.m., he was raped just a few yards from the guard, whose view was blocked by the position of the cell and by newspapers that were stuck to the bars with toothpaste.

Blair's account of the rape was corroborated in interviews with the men who he said raped him, William Daniels, 22, and Perry Edon, 30.

Daniels, from Bladensburg, was charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery and is now serving a life-plus-eight-year sentence for those crimes at the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore.

The other man, Perry Edon, 30, of Northeast Washington, was serving a 90-day sentence for failure to provide child support. Edon said that he raped Blair because he felt that he had to go along with Daniels or he would be raped himself.

According to Blair and his attackers, this is how the rape occurred:

Soon after Blair entered the cellblock, Daniels "hit me real hard on my face." Blair, who is short and slim, hit him back. But he was overpowered by Daniels, who grabbed him and forced him into a cell.

Inside the cell, Daniels threatened him with a "shank," a knife made in jail, and demanded that he perform oral sex. Blair, who says he was frightened, followed Daniels' directions.

"He gave it up," said Daniels.

Meanwhile, Edon was standing in front of the cell, blocking Blair's exit. When Daniels walked out of the cell, Edon stepped in.

"We just took turns on him," Edon said. "He was weak and we took advantage of him . . . . I gave him the impression that he had to do it or I'd take his teeth out. I feel bad about it today and I felt bad while he Blair was doing it. But I was in jail so I had to put on another image."

Blair's rape was reported to a guard by a youth who witnessed it, according to Blair and his attackers. Two hours after the youth reported the rape, the guards removed Blair from the section.

Blair says he initially wanted to bring charges against the rapists, but he felt he was discouraged from doing so by the county police detective who interviewed him.

"He said this guy's in there for life already, and he has other charges from D.C. too," Blair said.

The sex squad detective denied making the remark. "I wouldn't have told him that," the detective said.

No charges were brought in the case.

Blair's rape is not included in the jail's list of rapes even though he reported it to a guard, who recorded the incident in an official report.

Nearly a month later, on Feb. 1, Tyrone Blair pleaded guilty to destroying his brother-in-law's living room window. District Court Judge Thomas Brooks gave him a suspended sentence.

Blair feels as though he is still being punished. "Sometimes I have nightmares about it or if I sit and watch TV I think about it," he says. "Then I get up and talk to someone or do something to try to get my mind off it."

The rape also has made Blair question his sexual identity. His former girlfriend, who at one point did not know about the rape, called him a "punk" during an argument and, "It made me feel like maybe she had seen something about me, like maybe the rape had changed me," he says.

They subsequently broke up. Blair has made amends with his brother-in-law.

The Waiter

Ronald Fridge, 18, a waiter from Riverdale, got into an argument with his landlady on Nov. 17, 1980, over his $220-a-month rent.

After shouting at her in the hallway, he stormed out of the rooming house.

The landlady then, according to court documents, found that a window in his room was broken and the window frame battered.

She phoned police, who arrested Fridge three hours later and charged him with malicious destruction of property.

Fridge was acquitted in a trial before District Court Judge Francis A. Borelli on Jan. 5, 1981.

One week before his acquittal, while in the Prince George's County Detention Center, Fridge says he was raped.

His account of the rape was corroborated by a former jail inmate, Gerald Frost, 23, of Oxon Hill, who said during an interview with a reporter that he helped another man rape Fridge.

Frost was awaiting trial on a charge of robbery at the time; the other man's charges could not be determined.

The rape occurred on the third floor of the jail, in the "upper right" section. Most inmates in the section were free to roam in and out of the cells.

Fridge, however, had been in a locked cell because he had been beaten earlier by inmates, but a guard unlocked his cell shortly before the rape, according to Fridge and Frost.

By their accounts, no one was at the guard's desk at the time of the rape. Attempts to contact the guard for comment were unsuccessful.

According to Fridge, the two rapists grabbed him in a cell, beat him on his face and chest, and raped him anally.

"I had blue marks all over my skin," said Fridge.

Says Frost, the man who admits to helping rape Fridge: "The first time, my buddy grabbed three magazines, rolled them and started slapping him Fridge . I was laughing because it was funny to me. Then I hit Fridge with a tray and he fell on his knees. My buddy said, 'We're going to bang him.' I said no but he did it to him, on the bunk."

Hours later, when the guard returned to the cell block, Fridge reported the rape and asked to be moved to another section, he says.

But he wasn't moved until two days later, according to jail records, when Fridge says he complained again. In the meantime, he says he was raped again and again.

At the jail, Fridge's rape is not on the list of reported rapes. There is a record of the incident, however.

Fridge is still angry.

"Can you imagine going to jail for nothing and going through all that?" he asks. "I have nightmares about it. It makes you lose your mind."

The Repairman

Gary McNamara says that he had been in the jail in Upper Marlboro for only one week after his arrest on Nov. 26, 1981, when he was suddenly awakened by a pillow stuffed against his face. Seconds later he felt hands grabbing his arms and legs and his naked body was lifted, dropped and pressed against the cold floor.

McNamara, a 27-year-old Bowie resident who is an air conditioner repairman, was awaiting trial on charges of stealing some jewelry from a department store. He says he did not steal the jewelry. He has not yet gone to trial.

He recalls that when he hit the floor, someone sat on his back and other people pinned down his arms and legs. A towel was thrown around his mouth and yanked tight at the back of his head.

While he struggled, his stomach scraped the floor. All the while, he could hear his assailants laughing.

"I felt something, I think it was a fist, shoved inside of me," says McNamara. "I felt sheer terror."

He had been assigned to the 3D area with about 35 other inmates, most of whom had been charged with armed robbery or murder, according to jail guards. McNamara's cell was a few feet from the guard. During the rape, however, the guard could not see into McNamara's cell because inmates had draped the entrance to the cell with black plastic trash bags, according to McNamara.

After the rape, McNamara says, he stayed in his bunk for hours, stunned. Finally, he wrote a note, got up, and slipped it to the guard, who was sitting in a glass booth nearby. "I am having a problem. I wish to be transferred," the note said, according to Sgt. Cindy Barry, a jail supervisor.

McNamara said he did not tell the guard he had been raped because he was afraid that the inmates would harm him if they found out he had "snitched."

Soon after McNamara turned in the note, the guard escorted him downstairs to the classification section, where McNamara told jail counselor Al Cohen that he had been assaulted and wanted to move to a different section. Cohen, who did not ask for details, agreed to move him that day, according to jail spokesman Jim O'Neill.

About a week later, McNamara visited the jail medical technician, a man who has less training than a registered nurse, but McNamara did not tell him he had been raped. "I was afraid it would get back to them," he said, referring to the men who raped him.

McNamara says that he told the medical technician that he had received some black and blue marks from an assault the previous week, but the technician did not ask to see the marks, which were on his back and legs.

McNamara says he does not know the identities of the men who raped him. At the jail, there is no record that he was raped.

The Lieutenant

The events leading to the rape of a 31-year-old graduate of the University of Maryland began in 1976 when he was a first lieutenant in the Air Force. While he was in Greenland, a U.S. military plane crashed, and the man led rescue workers in the gruesome six-day-long job of sifting through wreckage and identifying the 21 dead.

The lieutenant was awarded a meritorious service medal for his efforts, according to a certificate signed by then-secretary of the Air Force Thomas C. Reed, but he suffered serious psychological damage including recurring nightmares and flashbacks that interrupted his ability to work. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and put on the Air Force's temporary retirement list, according to a letter from Capt. Raymon E. Aldrich, director of personnel program actions.

While the lieutenant was eating in the Plain and Fancy Donut Shop in Hyattsville on Dec. 22, he says his mind flashed back to the plane scene, and he imagined he was identifying dead bodies. He began throwing salt and pepper shakers and knocked over the cash register.

"I was thinking I couldn't dig the dog tags out of their skin by myself," he said in an interview. "I was stuck in that time."

Restaurant employes called police, and the man was arrested for disorderly conduct. He was taken to the Prince George's County Detention Center, where he was held for more than two months awaiting trial, although the charges against him eventually were dropped.

The lieutenant says he was assaulted and raped twice while he was in jail. During an interview at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Perry Point, Md., the lieutenant told how the rapes occurred:

On Feb. 24, around 2 p.m., while he was in the "cell block left" section of the jail, three inmates began assaulting him and taunting him. "I'd be sitting down and they'd take my legs and flip me over like a chicken," he said. "They'd say, 'We're going to f--- you.' They were monsters."

The lieutenant says he complained to the guard that three inmates were trying to rape him. But the guard, who was sitting about two yards away in the hallway, did not help him. "He told me that I had to defend myself," the lieutenant said. Attempts to contact the guard for comment were unsuccessful.

The lieutenant says that he did not feel he could defend himself against three inmates, so he went into a cell draped with newspaper. There, the inmates demanded that the man perform oral sex.

He obliged. "I figured that would satisfy them," he said. "I went along with it because I didn't want to get hurt, get my teeth knocked out. One of them had calves this thick," he said, spreading his hands eight inches apart.

It did not satisfy them--or at least not two of them, who pulled down the man's pants and forced anal sex with him.

During an interview, one of the alleged rapists, Thomas Coates, 25, confirmed that both he and two other men forced the lieutenant to perform oral sex; in addition, Coates said, he and another man anally raped the lieutenant.

Another man, Carroll Hawkins, 22, said that he was the "lookout man" for Coates during both rapes.

"I watched out for the dude while he was doing it to him," Hawkins said. "As far as me having sex with the dude, not me."

The third alleged rapist, now out of jail, could not be reached for comment.

The lieutenant told a guard about the rape 11 hours after it happened. By then, there was a different guard at the watch post, and the inmates who raped him were asleep. The guard took him to the jail medical technician, who confirmed that he had been anally raped, according to jail medical records.

The lieutenant says he signed a paper at the jail saying that he wanted to press charges against the rapists. But none was charged.

"He said that he didn't want to press charges," said jail Sgt. Cindy Barry.

The Student

Parrish, the 20-year-old student who was charged with drunken driving, was in jail cellblock 1A less than one hour when he was sexually assaulted.

He was standing in the common area of the cellblock when an inmate first pushed him into a cell out of the guard's view.

Two of the men whom Parrish identified as his assailants confirmed Parrish's account. Clifton Tucker, 19, a convicted armed robber who was in the county jail awaiting a judge's reconsideration of his sentence, said that he hit Parrish "in the stomach and he lost his wind. Then I hit him on the nose and broke his nose."

Tim Lipscomb, 22, who was awaiting trial on an armed robbery charge, said if Parrish had not escaped from them he would have been forced to perform oral sex with Tucker and "six dudes besides him."

At one point during the beating, Parrish managed to push his way out of the cell so that the guard could see him. But the guard, according to Parrish, Tucker and Lipscomb, was asleep. "He [the guard] was kicked back in his chair and his feet were up on the desk," said Tucker. "If he was awake he would have seen him [Parrish]."

Lipscomb says that he grabbed Parrish and threw him back into the cell. Then he and Tucker started beating Parrish again, demanding that he perform oral sex. Parrish refused. After several minutes, Parrish managed once again to bolt out of the cell; he ran to the guard's booth and banged on the glass, screaming for help.

"When he [the guard] woke up, he was in shock," said Tucker. "He picked up the red phone and started calling the other guards. They let Parrish out and then they came for us."

Jail spokesman Jim O'Neill said the guard told him he could not remember anything about the incident. At the jail, there is no record that the guard was asleep.

Parrish went to the jail medic, who cauterized his broken nose, put bandages on his wounds and wrote a medical record, according to Parrish and a man who works in the medical technician's office.

"He was bleeding like a stuck pig," said the man who works in the jail medical office. "It wasn't dried blood; it was fresh blood."

The jail has no medical record of Parrish's injuries, according to jail spokesman Jim O'Neill. At the jail, Parrish's case is listed as an assault rather than as an attempted rape.

Parrish identified his assailants from mug shots supplied by the jail guards. At first, Parrish told the guards that he wanted to bring charges against his assailants. Then he changed his mind.

"I was talking to this guard about bringing charges and he said, 'It's up to you; you do what you want. But if you come back here there's always the possibility that they'll retaliate against you.' "

Parrish could not remember the name of the guard who he says made the remark. He says his mother agreed with him the guard that he should not press charges. Minutes later, Parrish walked out of the jail and met his mother, who drove him home in the family station wagon.

"I never thought something like that could happen to me," says Parrish. "But then I never thought I'd be in jail."

Lipscomb said one reason for the assault was boredom. "There's nothing to do but play cards there," he said. "There's no recreation on the outside so you get recreation on the inside. Rape for rec."

The Salesman

Lance Estes Purdy, 32, an auto parts saleman from New Carrollton, was arrested Nov. 5 after stabbing 20-year-old Brian Trimble in the stomach when Trimble got on Purdy's motorcycle. Purdy, who had never been arrested before, was jailed without bond while awaiting trial.

On Nov. 6, Purdy was put in a section of the jail known as 3A with about 30 inmates who had been charged with or convicted of murder.

One hour later, around 11 p.m., Purdy was raped by five inmates and was brutally beaten. His rape was confirmed by the jail medic and by physicians at Prince George's General Hospital.

This is how Purdy describes what happened to him:

"I lit up a cigarette and someone said I had to go to a cell if I wanted to smoke. So I went into a side cell and sat down on a bunk to smoke. Then four or five of them came up to me and hit me in the face with their fists. They told me to roll over. I yelled for the guard and they started kicking me. They banged my head against the wall, tore my clothes off and all of them raped me. It went on for about a half hour." The guard, who was sitting in a glass booth just a few feet from the cell where Purdy was raped, phoned for help. He no longer works at the jail and could not be reached for comment.

Minutes after the rape, several guards ran into 3A and found Purdy naked on the floor of the cell. Blood was pouring from his face and chest.

Purdy was taken to the medic's office in the jail, where medical technician James Proffitt confirmed that he had been raped, according to medical records. Then Purdy was taken to Prince George's General Hospital, where his injuries were diagnosed as a punctured lung, a broken rib and a black eye as result of the beating he suffered during the rape, according to hospital medical records. He underwent surgery for the punctured lung and spent nine days in the hospital.

Purdy was able to identify only one of his assailants. He originally wanted to press charges, but later changed his mind, according to a state's attorney.

The charge against Purdy was reduced from assault with intent to commit murder to malicious stabbing, and he pleaded guilty in February. On March 29, he was sentenced to five years' probation by Circuit Court Judge Jacob S. Levin. Purdy is now at home, working part time.

Today, he thinks of his real sentence as the rape, rather than the probation, "I've been dazed since then," he says. "I lose my train of thought a lot. Sometimes someone will talk to me and it's like they're waking me back to reality."

The Series

Men are getting raped in the Prince George's County Detention Center -- violently and frequently. County jail officials, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges are somewhat aware of the problem, but for the most part ignore it. And so the rapes continue, hidden from public view yet with serious consequences to society.

The Post studied 24 cases of male rape and sexual assault that occurred in the county detention center from 1978 through 1982 and chose 12 to illustrate different aspects of the problem.

The rapists' names were obtained through interviews with victims. Most of the rapists were interviewed in Maryland prisons where they are now incarcerated. A few, who are now out of jail, were interviewed in their homes. For the most part, they spoke freely about the rapes they committed, characterizing them as a routine part of jail life, where the norms have little relation to norms on the outside.

The victims' names came from sources in the jail and the county courthouse. Those whose names are mentioned gave permission for their names to be used. Most of them were interviewed in their homes.

Rape is such a routine occurrence in jail that those inside the system -- both inmates and guards -- say the cases seem at times to run together. Only the victims and the culprits change; the techniques, the circumstances, the motivations remain the same.

But to each victim, the details are unique -- and cannot be forgotten.

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

A 19-year-old car mechanic from Queens, N.Y., was near an Exxon station in Greenbelt last year when a window was broken in the station, sounding an alarm. He was arrested and charged with attempted breaking and entering. He claimed he was innocent, and the charge was later dropped for lack of evidence.

But the young mechanic paid a high price for being arrested. On the day of his arrest, March 26, 1981, he was taken to the Prince George's County Detention Center. Two weeks later, while in a locked cell with four other men, he was raped by two of them, John Turkette, 24, and Eugene Hawkins, 17, he told police and an assistant state's attorney. Turkette was serving a sentence for manslaughter, and Hawkins was in jail on a first-degree murder charge. Turkette and Hawkins denied raping him, but acknowledged beating him.

After the mechanic was taken to Prince George's General Hospital and a rape was confirmed, the young mechanic returned to the jail, where the men he accused of raping him followed him from cell to cell. First, jail guards placed him in the same cell with Hawkins and Turkette, who beat him and threatened to harm his family if he accused them in court of rape. Later, jail officials placed him in a locked cell across from the two men, who hit him over the head with a broom they shoved through the bars. The mechanic tried to commit suicide twice after his repeated encounters with Hawkins and Turkette, according to jail and court records, and was found to be "depressed and suicidal" by doctors at Prince George's General Hospital.

The mechanic's experience was not an isolated incident. Violent gang rapes and sexual assaults occur in the Prince George's County jail about a dozen times a week, according to guards and inmates interviewed by a Post reporter for this series. The rapes and sexual assaults usually occur in cells beyond the vision of a guard. Even when an inmate screams for help, guards often do not respond -- until it is too late.

Interviews with about 10 guards and 60 inmates show that the jail routinely places those most likely to rape with those particularly vulnerable. Those likely to rape are men charged with or convicted of violent crimes such as murder and armed robbery. Those likely to become their victims are men charged with nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting and driving while intoxicated. The jail has an official policy of separating the violent inmates from the nonviolent ones but, in reality, the policy does not work in the crowded facility.

In addition, those who are raped are often no better off once they've reported the rape. They are locked in a small cell with several other inmates -- the same tactic jail officials use to punish unruly inmates. Sometimes, as in the mechanic's case, those other inmates are the original rapists.

The director of the center, Arnett Gaston, says he does not believe that large numbers of rapes and sexual assaults occur in the jail. Gaston says there is no proof that many rapes and sexual assaults are unreported. Even when an inmate reports a rape, Gaston said, he does not believe it happened unless the inmate presses charges -- a rare occurrence.

During an interview two weeks ago at the jail, Gaston defended the jail's placement of inmates charged with misdemeanors in the same sections with those charged with violent crimes. "These people men charged with violent crimes are charged with, not convicted, of certain acts," Gaston said. "Under the law, they're technically innocent."

Jail spokesman Jim O'Neill explained further: "More than half of these people are charged with violent offenses. But with the population being what it is, there's just not enough space to classify everyone as far as charges."

Two Assaults Alleged

Gregory Graham, 25, was arrested and charged with theft last year for shoplifting 15 records from the Musicland record store in Hyattsville. He did not have enough money to post $300 bond, so he spent a month awaiting trial in the Prince George's County Detention Center.

Graham was sexually assaulted on two different occasions, both times by men charged with crimes far more serious than his. The first time was on May 15, 1981, in a section of the jail known as 2A. Two of the men who he said forced him to perform oral sex were charged with first-degree murder. One of the men, who is a juvenile, said in an interview that after Graham walked into a cell, he and three other inmates blocked Graham's exit and threatened to beat him unless he followed their directions.

Graham reported that he was sexually assaulted but did not bring charges against the men; he said he was afraid of retaliation.

Partly as a result of Graham's complaint of a sexual assault, he was moved to the "cell block left" section of the jail, a section that jail officials feel is particularly safe because it is a small area and the guard sitting in front of it has a good view, according to jail Sgt. Cindy Barry.

While there, Graham complained of another sexual assault. The assault occurred on May 30 or June 1, according to a jail log book. In cell block left, three of the cells were locked. Inside those cells were men who had acted violently. For most of the day, the violent inmates could do no more than yell at the other inmates, who were in the common area of the section.

But for one hour each day, the violent inmates were allowed out of their cells -- for recreation -- in the section's common area. Graham was sexually assaulted by one of the violent inmates during recreation.

The assault occurred when an inmate named Joseph Roberts yanked Graham into his cell. Roberts, who was awaiting trial for armed robbery, was in the section because he had shot and wounded a jail guard, Joyce Williams, during an escape attempt from the county jail.

Roberts acknowledged in an interview that he sexually assaulted Graham.

"I pressed him against the wall and asked him for his body," said Roberts. "He said no but they always say no."

Roberts said that meanwhile he had exposed himself to Graham; Graham continued to resist.

Roberts opened Graham's jumpsuit, according to Graham, and began forcing anal intercourse. Then Roberts was interrupted by a friend, Warren Timothy Fletcher, who entered the cell. In an interview, Fletcher said he witnessed the sexual assault.

"When he Fletcher walked in," said Roberts, "I lost my hold and Graham ran out of the cell; he ran up the bars on the outside of the section and started screaming for help."

The guard, who no longer works at the jail, took Graham to the jail medic. The medic did not find evidence of a rape. Graham said he decided not to bring charges against Roberts because he was afraid that Roberts or his friends would harm him.

Today, Roberts feels no remorse about his actions. "I get tired of masturbating," he says. "Why should I masturbate when I got freaks who will do it for me? They look similar to a woman. Graham had female features."

At the jail, the two sexual assaults of Gregory Graham are not mentioned on the jail's list of "reported rapes," even though he reported them to guards who recorded the incidents in official reports.

Two days later, Graham pleaded guilty in District Court to stealing the records. Judge Louis Ditrani sentenced Graham to 30 days in jail, but gave him credit for the month he had spent there.

Graham is still troubled by the sexual assaults. "They acted like animals toward me," he says.

Rec Period Attacks

On Jan. 17, 1981, Richard Puleo returned to his Bowie house to find a 21-year-old man standing in the first floor hallway, wearing his wife's jeans and shirt. Puleo phoned police, who arrested the young man and charged him with breaking and entering.

But the intruder says he did not intend to burglarize the house. On that cold winter day, he had walked 12 miles from his home in Edgewater, Md., because he wanted "time to think." Then he began shivering. "I broke in the house to get warm," the young man said at his home during an interview in which he asked that his name not be used.

Six months later, after psychiatrist Rolanda Vieta of Spring Grove Hospital diagnosed the young man as schizophrenic at the time of the crime, the charge against him was dropped.

Most of those six months were spent in the Prince George's County Detention Center, where the man was held in lieu of $1,000 bond. At the county jail, according to jail director Gaston, he was given a locked cell to himself for his protection because he displayed a "loss of contact with reality." Despite the locked cell, the man was raped on two different days within his first month in jail, according to the victim and two men who said they raped him.

The rapes occurred after a guard unlocked the man's cell so that he could have an hour of recreation -- time to wander in the section and mingle with other inmates. During the hour, as at other times, the guard is supposed to watch the inmates.

This is how one of the rapists, Wallace Parker Jr., 28, tells the story of the first time the young man was raped:

"Andre and Wondel two other inmates were on a top bunk playing cards. They asked the kid victim to go up on the bunk and play cards with them. The kid did. Then Wondel threw a blanket down the front of the cell, so no one could see anything. Wondel said, 'Come here, man, take your pants off.' The kid said no, so they hit him on the face and Andre took his pants off . . . . " Parker said he, Wondel Smith and a third man then raped the man.

At the time, Parker had been convicted of armed robbery and was awaiting transfer to the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore, where he is serving a 20-year sentence. His description of the rape was corroborated by Smith, who says he also raped the young man. Smith is currently serving a 40-year sentence for first-degree murder at the Maryland Correctional Institution at Hagerstown.

"I f----- him because there were no females at the time," said Smith.

Andre Martin, 22, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for armed robbery at the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore, says he helped Parker and Smith rape the young man but that he did not rape him.

"Bam Bam Parker said, 'Come on, Andre, hold him.' So I held him . . . . The boy was screaming, he was saying, 'Stop, take it out, you crazy, I ain't no girl.'"

During an interview, the young man corroborated numerous points of the rapists' story. He did not report either of the rapes to anyone in the jail.

Doctor Confirms Rape

The 19-year-old Queens mechanic was originally placed in Section 1A of the county jail where he was forced to perform oral sex, according to a witness and former inmate, Adrian Smith. The mechanic complained to Al Cohen, a jail counselor, that he had a "problem" with inmates, though he didn't specify what kind of a problem, according to jail spokesman O'Neill.

Soon afterward, jail officials put him into Section 2A of the jail because that section was for juveniles and less aggressive inmates, according to O'Neill.

But in his new section, the mechanic was sexually assaulted again -- by different men. The accused men, who denied the charge of rape, were both in jail for violent crimes. One, Turkette, had been convicted of manslaughter. The other, Hawkins, who was in the section because he was a juvenile, was charged with first-degree murder. In addition to Hawkins, Turkette and the mechanic, there were two other inmates in the locked cell.

Why was the mechanic in a locked cell with Hawkins and Turkette? According to jail officials, the mechanic was the aggressor in a fight and needed to be punished. But Hawkins tells a somewhat different story, saying that the mechanic was the victim in a fight and needed protection. Hawkins was in the cell, he says, because he beat up another inmate, and Turkette was in the cell because he was afraid of being sexually assaulted, according to spokesman O'Neill.

The second attack took place on April 16 at 4 a.m. Hawkins and Turkette woke the mechanic, according to the mechanic's statement to police, tied a bed sheet around his neck and tried to force him to perform oral sex. When he refused, Hawkins and Turkette allegedly took off his pants and forced anal sex with him.

The rape was confirmed by Dr. Harold Alexander of Prince George's General Hospital, who found numerous injuries to the mechanic's anus, according to medical records.

The mechanic declined to be interviewed by The Post. But his description of the rape was supported by two other inmates, Virgil McClung and Frederick Vlachos. They said in interviews that Hawkins and Turkette described for them how they raped him.

In an interview, Hawkins denied raping the mechanic, but then he admitted beating him up on the morning of the alleged rape and telling other inmates that he raped him. "I was only joking," said Hawkins.

Hawkins said he often harassed the mechanic. "I'd say, 'What's up, girl?' and pat his ass because he was big and goofy looking," Hawkins said.

Turkette denied that he ever raped the mechanic, but he admitted beating and harassing him, saying that he felt he had to go along with Hawkins or become a victim himself.

According to Hawkins and Turkette, the guard was in the glass booth adjacent to the mechanic's cell on the night of the alleged rape. But the guard, who no longer works at the jail, could not see into the cell, which is made of concrete. Turkette and Hawkins said that the last time they saw the guard that night was at 11 p.m., five hours before the time the mechanic said he was raped. At 11 p.m., a group of guards passed the cell to count the inmates. The next time Turkette and Hawkins remember seeing any guards was 7 a.m. -- three hours after the alleged rape.

After a rape was confirmed at the hospital, jail officials put the mechanic in a locked cell in a different section on the jail, known as the processing unit. He was in that cell for a couple of days when guards put two familiar inmates into his cell: Hawkins and Turkette. The alleged rapists were on their way to the police station, according to Hawkins, where police were going to interview them about the rape charge.

Hawkins and Turkette wasted no time in taking out their anger on the mechanic. "Me and Turkette beat him up," Hawkins said. "Turkette grabbed him and threw him in the corner. He fell against the wall and I hit him three or four times in the neck. The guards didn't come for five minutes."

Hawkins said that he and Turkette told the mechanic that they would harm his family if he accused them of rape in court.

At the jail, there is no record that Hawkins and Turkette were in the same cell with the mechanic. But a guard who was on duty at the time confirmed that Hawkins and Turkette had beaten the mechanic in the processing-unit cell.

After the guards took Hawkins and Turkette out of the cell, the mechanic tried to commit suicide by slicing his wrists, according to jail records. He then was taken to Prince George's General Hospital, where Dr. Adul Rermgosakul diagnosed him as "depressed and suicidal," according to court records.

When the mechanic returned to the jail, officials put him back in 2A, where he had been raped, in a locked cell by himself. Directly across from that cell, in another cell, were Hawkins and Turkette.

"We didn't have the capacity to put him in CBL another section of the jail ," said spokesman O'Neill.

Although Hawkins and Turkette were in a locked cell, it was unlocked for one hour each day. It was during one of those times that Turkette shoved a broomstick through the bars of the mechanic's cell and hit him over the head. Hawkins, for his part, says that he threw a cup of urine on the mechanic through the bars. The mechanic then made a second suicide attempt, according to jail records, by slicing his wrists.

On April 23, 1981, the mechanic went to court; the attempted breaking and entering charge against him was dropped for lack of evidence.

He went home to New York. He did not return to Upper Marlboro in October, when he was scheduled to testify in court against Hawkins and and Turkette in the rape case. As a result, the rape charges were dropped.

Accepts 'Protection'

Gerry Mohler, 21, of College Park, was arrested and charged with armed robbery on Jan. 21, 1980, for robbing an Adelphi man of his watch and a pocket calculator in the man's apartment.

Two months later, Mohler was gang-raped while he was awaiting trial in the Prince George's County Detention Center, according to Mohler and two witnesses, Tommy Posie and Otis Praylow.

After he was raped, Mohler felt that he had only two choices: Either stay in a locked cell for 23 hours each day as protection from rape or do sexual favors for an inmate in return for protection. Ultimately, Mohler chose the second alternative.

Mohler, who is heterosexual and has a son, says that after his rape he was in a locked cell alone for several days. "I was miserable," he said. "It was like being in a locked telephone booth all day and all night."

Mohler asked jail officials to let him out. They obliged, and Mohler then joined about 40 other inmates in the jail's D1 dormitory area. While there, he constantly was sexually harassed by other inmates, who joined him in the shower, pinched him, fondled him, and threatened him with rape.

Mohler asked a jail guard to move him to a safer section of the jail, but the guard told him that he had to "deal with" the harassment because he already was in the safest section, according to Mohler and another inmate.

Mohler, who by then had been convicted of the armed robbery charge, says that he then had two alternatives: go back to the locked cell or allow a certain inmate, named Jerome Wilcox, to protect him from sexual harassment and rape.

Mohler said that Wilcox suggested the transaction by saying, "If you don't hook up with somebody you're going to have a hard time."

Mohler rejected the suggestion at first, but after several weeks of harassment he gave in.

"I only did it three times with him," Wilcox said. "And I didn't force him."

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)

Possibility of Rape May Help Some Convicted Men Avoid Jail

In Prince George's County Circuit Court last year, defense attorney Richard Sothoron tried to find a subtle way to tell a judge what had happened to his client, Frederick Vlachos, while Vlachos was awaiting sentencing in the county jail.

"There is reference in this probation report, and this is the first time that I have stated this for the record, that Mr. Vlachos had been assaulted since his incarceration over . . . "

Sothoron was interrupted by Judge Howard S. Chasanow, who got right to the point: "I understand he has been sodomized in the jail," Chasanow said, according to a transcript of the court proceeding.

While some judges say that they never hear about rapes and sexual assaults in the county jail, others say that they hear about jail rapes at least several times a year. Those judges say that the problem deeply disturbs them.

"We're not rehabilitating people," says District Court Judge Joseph Casula, referring to the rapes. "We're not even punishing them. We're subjecting them to torture and degradation."

Circuit Court and District Court judges say that the potential for rape in the county jail influences some of their sentences. They do not let the rapes affect their sentences for repeat offenders or persons convicted of violent crimes. County jail director Arnett Gaston says it is an old trick for inmates to claim to be rape victims to try to get lenient sentences.

But because of the likelihood of rape, some men who are first offenders or who have not committed violent crimes avoid incarceration entirely.

"All these people who scream about locking up the drunk drivers don't know what they're asking for," says Judge Vincent Femia. "If we knew that we could send someone to jail without him being sexually assaulted, there'd be a lot more people going to jail. The rapes work to the disadvantage of the judge who wants to send someone to jail for a short time to teach him a lesson."

James Edward Stead is one example of someone who avoided incarceration. Convicted in May of child molesting, he was given probation rather than a jail sentence because Judge Femia says he was afraid Stead would be raped.

John Howard Day is another example. Convicted of automobile manslaughter for killing a man while driving his pickup truck, he was sentenced last November to six months in the county jail, but Judge Femia changed his sentence to six months of community service after Day tried to commit suicide because he was threatened with rape during his first week in jail.

In addition, judges say the possibility of rape sometimes causes them to take into consideration a factor that otherwise would be irrelevant to a person's sentence: physical size. Short, slender convicted men are likely to get lenient sentences or avoid jail terms.

"When you have a frail person there's an obvious potential for sexual violence," says Circuit Court Judge Chasanow. "I send them to jail for a shorter period of time than I'd like. I don't want it to be such a traumatic exposure that it forever warps their lives."

Another judge says he puts convicted juveniles on probation or gives them shorter sentences than they deserve because he is afraid the juvenile will be raped in the county jail. Says District Court Judge Casula: "I'm very reluctant to send young people to that jail. If a guy was institutionalized before and knows how to handle himself, I'll send him there. Otherwise I won't . . . .They have a feast on them over there."

Judges and lawyers also try to prevent certain defendants from getting raped by asking jail officials to put the defendants in one of the three cells in the "processing" area of the jail. Those cells are in clear view of the guards.

Two years ago, for example, when the son of State's Attorney Arthur A. Marshall Jr. was sentenced to 18 months in jail with all but one day suspended for breaking into two houses, Judge Chasanow asked a jail official to put the younger Marshall in the jail's processing unit, where he was in clear view of the guards. The official obliged.

Judges who are concerned about the rapes say they cannot do anything to prevent them. But several years ago, Judge Chasanow wrote a letter to jail administrators complaining that certain men he had sentenced had been gang raped in the jail. At the time, the jail was under the control of the sheriff's department; it has since become a separate department of the county government.

County Sheriff Jimmy Aluisi, who was then captain of security at the jail, responded to the letter by installing spotlights in each cell of the jail; but the lights could not be turned off at night. Today, most of the lights are no longer in the jail cells, according to jail spokesman Jim O'Neill, because inmates have broken them. O'Neill said that new lights will be installed within a month.

Prosecuting attorneys say they are troubled that certain defendants get shorter sentences -- or avoid imprisonment entirely -- because of the potential of rape.

"Whether justice is rendered shouldn't be based on that the fear someone will be raped ," says assistant state's attorney Kevin McNeil who prosecuted the child molester's case. "The rapes are a problem for the department of corrections to deal with," he adds, "not the judges or prosecutors."

Defense attorneys say the rapes corrupt the criminal justice system in other ways. County public defender James E. Kenkel, for example, says that county homicide detectives recently pressured one of his clients to confess to a murder by telling him that if he did not confess, he would "get f----- in the ass in jail."

"The line of reasoning," says Kenkel, "was, 'Do you want us to throw you in jail right now or talk to us and we'll help you.'" The suspect confessed, but went to jail anyway and was raped on Feb. 1, Kenkel says. Kenkel plans to argue a motion to suppress the confession on Nov. 3.

Kenkel worries most about the long-term implications of these rapes.

"The rapes are certainly counterproductive to any attempt to rehabilitate," he says. "We know that victims become aggressors and abused children become abusers. In another time and place, jail rape victims are likely to abuse others. Society pays a big price for allowing this situation to exist."

(Courtesy of The Washington Post.)