Growing San Bernardino jails secure jobs

ADELANTO – With expansion under way at two jails and a third one set to reopen soon, this High Desert city appears to be experiencing a housing boom of a different sort.

That “housing” is part of the city’s plan to bring employment opportunities, give a financial boost to the local economy and take advantage of Adelanto’s abundant open land.

“That’s our biggest interest, being able to help create some jobs in the area,” City Manager James Hart said.

Adelanto encompasses a 56-square-mile chunk located west of the 15 Freeway, a major transportation artery between Southern California and the bright lights of Las Vegas.

Census estimates show the city has grown tremendously over the last decade, from about 18,000 people to about 31,700 people, as people sought more affordable housing and an escape from the hustle of city life.

The industrial section of the city, where the jails are located, is filled with older prefabricated buildings and some concrete structures. Many of them house small businesses, and a fair share are empty and for lease.

The project at the sheriff’s detention center brought about 500 construction jobs at its peak to the area, many requiring specialized skills such as iron workers, plumbers, electricians and cement workers.

Subcontractors even leased empty buildings near the job site, said sheriff’s Capt. Jon Marhoefer. When the project is completed, the Sheriff’s Department will need about another 250 people – such as safety, medical, maintenance and culinary personnel – to operate the facility, jail officials said.

“When the whole thing is said and done, it will be a giant benefit to the citizens of this county,” Marhoefer said.

The Sheriff’s Department also expects to realize cost savings. Currently, the Adelanto jail is an overflow facility for minimum- and medium-security inmates from the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga and Central Detention Center in San Bernardino.

But when the expansion is completed, the Adelanto facility will be able to house high-security inmates and act as a hub serving the courthouses of Victorville and Barstow, reducing transportation costs and security risks from numerous bus trips daily through the Cajon Pass.

The cost of the jail’s expansion is partly covered by a $100 million grant as a result of Assembly Bill 900. San Bernardino County placed first on the list for the funds.

“It tells us the state agrees we have a need, and we have the ability to carry out the project,” Marhoefer said. The expansion is anticipated to be completed by August 2013.

At one expansion in an industrial area on Commerce Way, construction crews have been working on a $120 million, 1,368-bed expansion project at the sheriff’s Adelanto Detention Center.

A couple of blocks away, heavy equipment rumbled across a wide swath of land for an expansion project at jails operated by Florida-based company GEO Group.

The company invested $22 million to retrofit and renovate a jail that it bought from the city last year and will temporarily house illegal immigrants. Another $70 million investment project will raise the total beds from 650 to 1,300.

When GEO Group’s holding facility for illegal immigrants is completed, about 100 people will be needed to operate it. But most of those jobs will be offered to the 100 or so city employees who had worked there when Adelanto still operated the jail, Hart said.

GEO Group’s expansion project will need about 50 to 60 employees when completed, Hart said.

However, the sheriff’s jail and GEO Group’s operations don’t necessarily bring the city a lot of direct revenue. The city will get $50,000 a year from GEO Group to offset the costs of maintaining the contract. But the additional jobs – even the construction jobs – also benefit Adelanto in other ways.

“What it does is it stimulates the (local) economy,” Hart said. “The jobs pay well, and people will use their money to buy houses, vehicles, furniture, clothing and an assortment of other manufactured goods. They also need to eat, and local businesses feel the boost.”

The closest place to eat near the jails in the industrial area of Adelanto is Del Muro’s, a family-owned restaurant with homestyle Mexican cooking and American fare from Heriberto Del Muro and Reyna Del Muro.

The next closest place is a burger restaurant on the other side of Highway 395, so Del Muro’s has a market. The specials on Thursday at Del Muro’s included a N.Y. steak and eggs, country fried steak and a turkey sandwich.

Clientele comes from the nearby businesses, the construction crews and people visiting inmates at the jails. Some of those construction personnel come from as far away as Texas, said manager Susie Del Muro.

“I think that’s where we get most of our business, it’s not local,” Del Muro said. Jail guards and office staff stop in occasionally at the restaurant, but Saturdays are a popular day for visitors to the jail and Menudo, she said.

Del Muro can usually spot the jail visitors because they ask for dollar bills which can be taken into the jail.

The city also has dreams of building a 6,100-bed state prison near the same area, west of Highway 395, to help ease overcrowding and lessen the flow of Calfiornia’s inmates to be housed in other states.

Officials had been in discussions with the state for a couple of years to build a new prison on a 226-acre site near Highway 395, Hart said. But those talks stalled when Jerry Brown was elected governor in November.

Brown’s office has told Hart that priorities are now focused on getting a state budget.

Hart, however, remains optimistic.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that a reduction of 33,000 state prisoners was needed to correct serious lapses in medical care.

The hope behind Adelanto’s new prison proposal was that if California was going to send thousands of inmates of state to alleviate overcrowding, why not house them in Adelanto.

“That’s California revenue that’s leaving to another state, and there’s no return on that,” Hart said. The city wanted to work out a deal to build and operate the prison, which would need about 2,500 to 3,000 employees, he said.

“We would then be able to generate jobs, and then those jobs would be paying California taxes,” Hart said. “So there would be a return on the investment and help take care of overcrowding.”

More child abuse charges filed in Mentone case, 350k Bail Bond

San Bernardino County prosecutors have filed additional child abuse charges against a Mentone couple stemming from what investigators believe were multiple battering incidents against the woman’s two young daughters over a nine-month period.

Jordan Joseph Brommer, 20, and Cheryl Christine Mock, 19, are now charged with six counts each of child abuse resulting in great bodily injury to a child under age 5.

The couple was initially charged with two counts each of child abuse with great bodily injury and pleaded not guilty.

Mock is the mother of the two children, but Brommer is not their father.

Brommer and Mock were in Superior Court on Friday where Judge John Martin granted Deputy District Attorney Melissa Rodriguez’s request that the couple’s bail bond be increased from $100,000 to $350,000 each because of the seriousness of the charges.

Their next court date is set for April 13.

Rodriguez said after court that the additional charges were filed based on medical examinations of the two girls that showed older injuries that were in the process of healing and newer injuries.

Investigators believe there were three separate beating incidents between June 2010 and Feb. 26, when Brommer and Mock were arrested, Rodriguez said.

Paramedics were called to the Mentone apartment where they lived and found the 3-year-old having trouble breathing. The children were put into protective custody and taken to Loma Linda University Medical Center for treatment.

Rodriguez said she did not know the condition of the children and would not reveal where they were.

The amended complaint filed in the case provides more information about the girls who are referred to as Jane Doe with a birth date of March 21, 2007, and Jane Doe with a birth date of March 16, 2009.

According to the complaint, the 3-year-old suffered a skull fracture with brain injury, three fractured ribs on her left hand side and three fractured ribs on her right side.

The 1-year-old suffered three fractured ribs and a lacerated liver, a broken collarbone and a fractured shin bone.

Mock remains in custody at the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, and Brommer is being held at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.

By SANDRA STOKLEY
The Press-Enterprise

San Bernardino County Settles Strip Search Lawsuit

Officials Deny Wrongdoing, But Agree To A $25.5 Million Settlement. Thousands Of Ex-West Valley Detention Inmates Could Benefit

By Joe Mozingo and Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

San Bernardino County officials have agreed to pay $25.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that said jailers conducted illegal strip searches, sometimes in front of inmates and deputies of the opposite sex.

As many as 160,000 inmates may have been subjected to the searches over three years, attorneys for the plaintiffs said, and each could get several hundred dollars, depending on how many apply for the award. The settlement is one of the largest in the nation to resolve the issue balancing jail security concerns and inmates’ privacy rights.

Between May 2003 and December 2006, sheriff’s deputies strip-searched many inmates they processed into the two central jails, even if there was no reason to suspect them of smuggling contraband, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said at a news conference in Los Angeles.

Inmates were forced to bend over and spread their buttocks so deputies could see their body cavities, and some had their genitals inspected, according to the lawsuit. “These are pretty humiliating things for people who were arrested for all sorts of things, including very minor offenses,” said attorney Barry Litt.

San Bernardino County spokesman David Wert said the county denies wrongdoing and disputes the allegations in the suit.

County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said San Bernardino County agreed to settle the suit to avoid the risks of litigation and noted that insurance would pay for most of the settlement. The department changed its policy last year after the lawsuit was filed so that the only people being strip-searched are those suspected of carrying contraband, Wert said.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said the searches were done for jail security. “Strip searches were never conducted with the thought of embarrassment to anyone; it was all to ensure the safety of all persons,” she said.

The agreement requires the county to contact current and former inmates who may have been subject to searches. The agreement is expected to become final after a court hearing in February.

The suit was filed on behalf of six women and one man who were searched at the West Valley Detention Center or the Central Detention Center. They were accused of crimes including violation of a restraining order and failure to appear in court in a drunk driving case.

It alleged that the searches violated their constitutional right to due process, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. It also alleges that the group strip searches violated state privacy laws.

The settlement names five groups of inmates who were searched illegally: those transferred between county jails before they were arraigned, federal inmates searched upon arriving at a county jail, inmates who had been in custody of another law enforcement agency, inmates who were ordered released and brought back to jail for processing, and inmates searched in groups.

Litt said that in December, a federal judge ruled that jail officials had violated the rights of inmates who were being strip-searched before their arraignments as well as those the courts had ordered released.

The judge found the procedure was an unreasonable search, Litt said.

Plaintiff Betty Welch said she was forced to strip three times with others at the West Valley Detention Center in July 2005, in view of male inmates and sheriff’s deputies not involved in the search. Some could watch through a large window in the hallway. She had been arrested for failure to appear on a drunk driving charge.

“That’s a violation,” she said.

The first time she was searched was when Adelanto police brought her to the detention center.

Welch appeared in court on July 25. Before she was taken to court, she was strip-searched, and after the judge ordered her released, she was taken back to West Valley and searched a third time.

Welch, 52, said inmates were forced to squat for at least a minute. She has steel rods and plates in her legs from a car accident and was in pain. She said another woman was eight months pregnant and was having trouble breathing.

Elroy Hardy said he was searched in a hallway of the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga with more than 40 other inmates.

Hardy, who was in custody in March 2005 for allegedly violating a restraining order, said the inmates were forced to stand naked, shoulder to shoulder and bend over with their backs to the guards while they were searched.

Hardy said female deputies and jail trustees were watching or walking through the area as they escorted other inmates or delivered bedding.

San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod, who was named in the lawsuit, was not available for comment.

The other four county supervisors did not return calls for comment.