Santa Clara County Jail Inmates Charged After Attack On Informant

MILPITAS, CA — A grand jury indicted 31 inmates in the Santa Clara County Jail in connection with an attack in November on a fellow inmate minutes after he was booked into the Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas. The victim, who was not identified, was serving as an informant in a pending criminal case, prosecutors said.

“The jail is not a law-free zone where anything goes,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “Violence is no more acceptable behind bars than it is outside them.”

Rosen on Tuesday announced felony assault charges related to the attack against 31 inmates, as well as the following charges.

• The 31 inmates were also accused of active participation in a criminal street gang.
• Nineteen of the inmates also face charges of personal infliction of great bodily injury.
• Five inmates were charged with retaliation against a witness.
• Two were charged with witness intimidation.

All defendants were arraigned Monday and face “significant” prison time if convicted, prosecutors said.

The attack took place when the victim was dragged into an area near the jail guards’ window, the district attorney's office said. The attack, captured on video surveillance, lasted 5 minutes, 37 seconds in a shared dorm room at the facility and left the 40-year-old victim bloody, naked and with broken bones, according to prosecutors.

At one point, an attacker poured floor cleaner over the victim’s bloody face while he was being dragged and punched by the group of inmates, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors believe that all involved were active gang members because the attack occurred in an open dormitory-style jail unit limited to gang members. The victim had cooperated with law enforcement on a pending criminal case, which prosecutors believed motivated the mass attack.