Private prison denies fault in beating

BOISE – A major private prison company has acknowledged that its guards watched as an Idaho inmate was beaten, but company attorneys say Corrections Corporation of America isn’t to blame for any injuries the man suffered.

The statements came in a response to a lawsuit filed by former inmate Hanni Elabed, who contends he was severely beaten by another inmate while guards at the CCA-run Idaho Correctional Center watched and failed to intervene. Elabed’s attorneys say the assault left him with brain damage.

Although CCA attorneys say several guards did watch the assault on video monitors, the company denies that the guards watched “passively.” Rather, CCA says the guards ordered inmates in the housing unit where Elabed was being assaulted to return to their bunks, and most complied, according to CCA’s answer to the lawsuit. The main door to the unit was opened once the emergency response team arrived — a group of guards specially trained to handle assaults and other prison emergencies.

CCA’s answer to the lawsuit doesn’t say just how long it took for the emergency response team to arrive at the housing unit.

Attorneys for the Nashville, Tenn.-based CCA and Elabed didn’t immediately return phone calls from the Associated Press.

In the lawsuit filed in April, Elabed’s attorneys describe a harrowing assault in which an inmate who was a member of a white supremacist gang beat Elabed, who is Muslim and of Palestinian descent. The lawsuit says Elabed told guards and family members that he was being harassed and threatened by the gang before the attack, prompting prison staffers to move him to administrative segregation for several days.

It was when the guards decided to move Elabed back to his cellblock on Jan. 18 that the assault occurred, according to the lawsuit. Within minutes and within the view of several guards standing by a window, Elabed’s attorneys say, he was attacked by another inmate.

Elabed was knocked to the floor, kicked and stomped in the head for so long that his attacker paused to get a drink of water and catch his breath, according to the lawsuit, before resuming the attack. Elabed’s attorneys say that during that break Elabed pleaded with the guards to intervene to no avail. They contend the attack didn’t end until he was unconscious and convulsing in a pool of blood.

In their answer to the lawsuit, CCA attorneys acknowledge that Elabed was knocked to the floor, stomped and that his attacker took a drink at a drinking fountain before renewing the assault. They also say Elabed was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for a closed head injury, and that he was readmitted at the hospital a few days later for follow-up care.

CCA denies Elabed’s claims that he was left largely without medical care after he was returned to the Idaho Correctional Center. The company also denies that its employees were negligent in any way.

CCA also offered several affirmative defenses – a legal move that essentially says if the facts as alleged by Elabed are found to be true, CCA still isn’t to blame. Among the defenses offered by CCA attorneys are contentions that Elabed put himself at risk through no fault of the private prison company, that Elabed is wholly or at least partially to blame for his injuries, and that CCA was neither reckless or callously indifferent to Elabed’s rights and that it wasn’t motivated by any evil intent.