HOUSTON (CN) — A Texas prisoner testified Monday that five guards stormed his cell, squeezed his genitals and shoved something into his rectum after he asked why he needed to be strip-searched, since he was already naked.
Six prison guards are fighting excessive force and failure to protect claims that Marcos Ortiz, 60, made in an October 2014 federal lawsuit.
Ortiz took the stand Monday, the first day of trial, in a long-sleeved white shirt, a black tie and thick glasses, his gray goatee nearly meeting white sideburns.
He peered around a computer monitor facing him on the witness stand and told his attorney he's still haunted by the sexual assault he suffered at the Estelle Unit in Hunstville on Jan. 31, 2014.
"How often do you think about the incident?" asked his attorney, Laura Smith, with Baker Botts.
"Just about every day."
"How does it make you feel?
"It makes me depressed. It doesn't make sense to me, for putting my arms through the food slot, I was subjected to all that."
According to trial testimony, jailers at the Estelle Unit confiscated Ortiz's clothes and property to punish him for starting a fire in his cell. Ortiz claims in his lawsuit that guards also denied him food and medical attention for several days and when they ignored his request to talk to a supervisor he resorted to putting his arms through the food slot, called "jacking the slot."
Ortiz filed the lawsuit as John Doe.
"Unfortunately, Doe only succeeded in drawing the attention of Juaquine Pope, who was a lieutenant at the time and was later promoted to captain. Pope had no interest in Doe's situation. Instead, he emptied over 14 ounces of pepper spray into Doe's cell," Ortiz's amended complaint states.
The jury of six women and four men appeared captivated as they watched footage of Pope ordering Ortiz to get his arm out of the slot.
The five other guards Ortiz sued sat in chairs against a wall of the wood-paneled courtroom, under the projector screen as the film rolled.
Some of them squinted, one closed his eyes, one stared at his feet, the guy next to him scowled, the scene frozen like a sooty Norman Rockwell painting in the darkened courtroom, as Pope yelled at Ortiz in the video.
"Mr. Ortiz, submit to a strip search or the application of chemical agents will be utilized ... Mr. Ortiz, submit to hand restraints. Be advised that at this time the prisoner is refusing ... Mr. Ortiz, submit to a strip search or application of hand restraints and a five-man team will be utilized!"
Ortiz testified that he didn't understand why Pope was asking him to submit to a strip search.
"I was saying, 'Why are you talking about a strip search?' because I was naked," he said.
The video shows Pope squirt pepper spray through the slot three times, before five guards wearing helmets, shields, body armor and handcuffs storm into the cell.
"Ahhh, help!" Ortiz yells on the video amid the screeching of other inmates and muffled voices of guards saying, "Stop resisting."
"That was me screaming, first because they were pulling and squeezing my testicles and penis and they drove a foreign object into my rectum," he said.
"How did you feel after incident?" his attorney asked.