A pregnant inmate thrown to the floor while being booked. Guards looking the other way when inmates fight. Jail deputies beating inmates in a remote elevator where no security camera is watching.

Those were among the abuses the U.S. Justice Department found in an almost two-year investigation of Erie County's two jails.

The federal investigators concluded that the jails violate the constitutional rights of their inmates and subject them to brutality as well as poor care on several levels.

In its 50-page report, the Justice Department says the Erie County Holding Center in Buffalo and the Correctional Facility in Alden have failed to correct their serious problems even after being warned for years by other agencies.

The Justice Department called the administrative effort by Sheriff Timothy B. Howard's Jail Management Division "woefully inadequate" and said it has led to a "pattern of serious harm to inmates, including death."

"We conclude that the conditions of confinement violate the constitutional rights of inmates," the Justice Department said in a letter to County Executive Chris Collins, who months ago shut off all county cooperation with the probe begun in November 2007, before he took office.

Not only did Erie County refuse to cooperate -- on the county attorney's advice -- the county attorney sought out some inmates whom the federal authorities had interviewed in other facilities and asked them to reveal their testimony, the Justice Department revealed.

"Much of what is in the report is based on fiction and not reality," said County Attorney Cheryl A. Green, who said she conducted those follow-up interviews to assess whether the inmates had been coached and to determine whether their testimony would be accurately presented.

But in an interview Wednesday, Green withheld judgment on the stories of excessive force.

The Justice Department listed almost 14 pages of corrections it wants to see and discussed the possibility of a lawsuit to force Erie County to comply with the federal Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

Many improvements are under way in the county's two jails, Green said, adding that she did not believe the report will lend more credence to lawsuits filed against Erie County over jail conditions.

Others, however, predict the Civil Rights Division's report will bolster legal claims by people who say they were mistreated, neglected, abused or denied crucial medical care in the jails. Erie County has paid out millions to settle such claims over the years. More cases are pending.

"Regrettably, as has happened so often in the past, more inmates, prisoners and their families will likely sue the county due to the conditions in the jails," County Comptroller Mark C. Poloncarz said. "That was avoidable, and further deaths and injuries could have been prevented had the sheriff addressed these deficiencies."

Erie County's two jails receive some 23,000 people a year, the Justice Department said, and the Holding Center is New York's second-largest pretrial detention facility. Issues of crowding, poor medical care and filth, especially at the Holding Center, have been public issues for years.

Allegations of brutality have been less common. But the Justice Department said it learned of several cases involving "excessive use of force." For example:

-- Holding Center deputies take inmates on "elevator rides" in an isolated elevator without a security camera. Inside they are beaten, the report said.

-- A pregnant inmate being booked into the Holding Center in August 2007 was struck in the face, thrown to the ground and kneed in the side, losing two teeth, the Justice Department said. When the inmate said she was pregnant, the deputies said they thought she was just fat.

--An inmate being cavity-searched in August 2008 asked that a deputy change the rubber gloves obviously stained from the cavity searches of other inmates. The deputy responded by hitting the inmate in the head and telling him he "did not have to do a damn thing," the Justice Department said.

-- A correctional facility inmate died of a stroke in March 2007 after officers forced his head against a wall and personnel ignored his request for medical help, the Justice Department said. The inmate has been previously identified as Joseph Balbuzoski, who was awaiting trial on charges of burglary and grand larceny.

-- An inmate shouting and yelling at the arrival of the new year in January 2008 was punched, kicked and had a sheet tied around his neck with the threat to hang him. He was then shackled and punched again while in an isolation cell, the report said.

The Justice Department heard of deputies and officers looking the other way when inmates were attacking inmates or not intervening when they clearly witnessed violence. For example:

-- In February 2007, an inmate stabbed another inmate with a broken broom handle. The deputy on duty said he did not see the assault because he was moving a box onto an elevator at the time. The report did not indicate whether this occurred in the correctional facility or the Holding Center.

-- On Nov. 26, 2007, the report said, a deputy watched but did not intervene when an inmate threw a chair across the law library at another inmate because he considered him a snitch.

The Justice Department investigators said they were told of inmates pitted against one another by guards; inmates egged on to beat up sex offenders or suspected sex offenders; and inmates being enlisted to discipline other inmates in exchange for favors.

Warnings about jail conditions go back years. Lawsuits were filed in the 1990s against crowding at the Holding Center. More recently, staff from the State Commission of Correction, which polices local jails, have said the Holding Center is in "the most protracted period of noncompliance" by any facility in the state. The commission has called its medical care "negligent and incompetent."

"The Department of Justice report confirms many of the same problems we have identified and brought to the attention of Erie County over the past several years," said Thomas A. Beilein, the former Niagara County sheriff who heads the commission. "I am hopeful that this report, and our previous reports, will motivate Erie County to address the many deficiencies at the Erie County Holding Center and bring the facility into compliance."

The Justice Department provided a few examples of warnings that have gone unheeded, including this one: Since 2003, at least 23 Holding Center inmates either committed suicide, attempted suicide or took steps that demonstrated suicidal thoughts, the report said.

In 2008, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care said Erie County should stop housing suicidal inmates in cells that gave them the chance to hang themselves … cells with steel beds, missing wall plates, bars on windows. But the Justice Department said the county will still put suicidal inmates in unsafe cells.

The Justice Department accused county officials of being "deliberately indifferent" andnot taking incidents of suicide andthe warnings of outside agencies seriously.

© 2009 The Buffalo News