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Former jailer arrested
Published November 16, 2007
A former jailer at the Val Verde Correctional Facility was arrested Thursday after he was indicted for violating the civil rights of an inmate in October 2006.
Agents of the Del Rio office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office investigators arrested Emmanuel Cassio, 20, Lot 6 Margo Dr. about 8 a.m. Thursday, said Lt. Larry Pope, who heads the VVSO’s criminal investigations division, which initiated the investigation last year.
Pope said Cassio was indicted earlier this week by a Del Rio federal grand jury on one count of deprivation of rights under the color of law, a felony.
Pope said the civil rights violation is alleged to have occurred during a confrontation between a federal prisoner and Cassio while Cassio was employed as a jailer in the facility.
Val Verde Correctional Facility Warden John Campbell said Thursday afternoon that Cassio was employed at the facility from late April 2006 until he was fired in late November 2006.
Pope said the incident between Cassio and the inmate is alleged to have occurred on Oct. 31, 2006, when Cassio walked into a cell and “struck the inmate with his fist.”
Pope said the inmate then made a derogatory remark to Cassio, who is then alleged to have punched the inmate a second time.
“The inmate made a remark and the jailer returned and hit him again,” Pope said.
Pope said, “This incident was witnessed by another jailer who reported it to jail administration. Warden Campbell immediately notified Sheriff (A. D’Wayne) Jernigan and requested an investigation.”
Pope said when the request for the investigation came to his division, he turned the case over to his second-in-command, VVSO Sgt. James “Mac” McGonagill.
“Mac did an excellent and thorough investigation,” Pope said. “Even the FBI agents commented on how thorough the investigation was.”
Cassio was taken into custody without incident, Pope said.
Pope said once McGonagill completed the investigation, “we reviewed it and felt that the case fell under federal jurisdiction.”
“The case was then presented to the local FBI office, whose agents in turn forwarded it to the Department of Justice. The DOJ agreed to prosecute the case,” Pope said.
“We take these types of accusations very seriously and immediately initiated an investigation and we will initiate investigations as soon as we become aware of these types of accusations. The GEO Group officers saw it and saw that it wasn’t right and Lt. Pope’s division undertook the investigation at my request,” Jernigan said in a telephone interview this morning.
If found guilty of the offense, Cassio faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison, a fine not to exceed $250,000 and three years’ supervised release.
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