Lawyers for an alleged victim of a jailhouse attack captured on video criticized Monday how it took 21/2 years before a Cook County correctional officer was charged, and alleged that the same guard assaulted numerous other inmates over the next year.
Speaking out for the first time, Litroy Bolton told reporters that during the incident in Cook County Jail in January 2014 he dropped to the floor and offered up his hands to be cuffed.
“I didn’t want to get beat up,” said Bolton, who was in custody at the time on a marijuana charge that was later thrown out.
The correctional officer, Miguel Ortiz, was charged last week with official misconduct 21/2 years after surveillance cameras showed him repeatedly punching Bolton as the inmate lay on the floor.
Bolton’s lawyers alleged that the sheriff department’s Office of Professional Review intentionally dragged out the investigation to try to prevent the filing of a lawsuit over the excessive force allegations. A suit, however, was filed in federal court in May against the sheriff’s office, Cook County, Ortiz and others.
Bolton’s attorney, Vince Field, also criticized the delay in bringing the criminal charges against Ortiz.
“The question is, in this case, why did it take so long to do so?” he said at a news conference at his law offices. “That delay can’t just be measured in time. It’s measured in the assault of other inmates as well.”
Citing prison records obtained through a public records request, Field alleged that in the 13 months after the alleged attack on Bolton, Ortiz assaulted at least 10 other inmates, including one who was on suicide watch.
“Without the video, I don’t think we would be standing here today,” Field said.
Cara Smith, the sheriff’s chief policy officer, took issue with the portrayal of Ortiz as what she called “a serial abuser of detainees.”
“He crossed a line with Litroy Bolton,” she said. “This was a bad incident. We recognized it, and we referred it to state attorney’s office for criminal charges.”
Ortiz, 44, who has worked for the sheriff’s office since 1995, was charged with one felony count of official misconduct. If convicted, he could receive probation or up to five years in prison.
Last week Judge James Brown released Ortiz on his own recognizance after viewing the videos in court, authorities said.
Asked last week why the charges came 21/2 years after the videotaped beating, Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, said prosecutors only learned of the incident in April 2015 and that Bolton didn’t cooperate with investigators early on.
Bolton was being transferred within the jail in January 2014 when he overheard correctional officers say his new cell had recently been used to quarantine a sick inmate, prosecutors charged.
Bolton dropped the blankets he was carrying onto the floor and told officers he refused to go into the cell, prosecutors alleged.
Ortiz, who was in a control room across from the hall, overheard Bolton’s complaints and saw him drop his blankets, prosecutors said. A few minutes later, Ortiz approached Bolton and asked him if he was refusing to enter the cell, according to prosecutors. Bolton said he was refusing and asked for a supervisor.
Prosecutors said Ortiz reached for Bolton’s arm to escort him into the cell, but Bolton fell to the floor when he pulled away.
While another officer bent over to handcuff Bolton, Ortiz knelt down and punched the inmate about seven times in the face and head, prosecutors charged.
Bolton was taken to the jail’s Cermak Hospital and treated for blunt head trauma, prosecutors said.
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The incident was captured on two of the jail’s video surveillance cameras.
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