Galliher: I was beaten by guards

The last time Robert Galliher talked publicly about being abused as a boy by a sheriff’s deputy he says he ended up with a black eye, bruised ribs and blood in his urine.

Galliher claims he was beaten by correctional officers in the Spokane County Jail in 2003, about three months after he was quoted in The Spokesman-Review. In that newspaper story, Galliher said he and his older brother Brett were sexually abused in the late 1970s by Spokane County Sheriff’s Deputy David Hahn.

Galliher has since also accused Spokane Mayor Jim West of sexually abusing him during the same era, when West was a sheriff’s deputy. West said the allegations are lies.

But Galliher insists the sex abuse and the beating were real. He said he wrote about the beating in a January 2004 letter to Mic Hunter, a St. Paul, Minn., psychologist and author of “Abused Boys,” a book on sex abuse (see accompanying letter).

“As they were kicking me they said just that I wasn’t going to disgrace their police department or sheriff’s department, you know, like I was trying to do,” Galliher said in a recent interview.

He said the beating occurred before he, his brother and two other men hired Spokane attorney John Allison, who filed a pending lawsuit against Spokane County for the actions of Hahn, who committed suicide in August 1981.

“It has taken great courage for all of these men to come forward and tell their stories,” Allison said this week. “Any attempt to silence or intimidate them is outrageous and cannot be tolerated.”

Their suit, set for trial in November, doesn’t include Galliher’s allegation that his civil rights were violated when he was arrested in September 2003 and beaten by correctional officers in the jail.

An FBI investigation apparently concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally for what happened to Galliher in jail. The newspaper has requested the investigative file under the Federal Freedom of Information Act, but its release could be months away because such public disclosure requests aren’t typically given high priority.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rob Binger, who defends the county on civil matters, said this week he had no idea about the alleged beating of Galliher.

Spokane County Sheriff’s Office personnel were absolved of any wrongdoing in the FBI investigation, said spokesman Dave Reagan.

But Galliher’s attorney at the time, Assistant Public Defender Doug Boe, said he believes there may be merit to Galliher’s claims of being beaten after he exercised his freedom of speech rights and spoke with a reporter.

The county defender said he wanted to get photos of his client’s injuries, but didn’t because the defender’s office had to withdraw from the case because of a conflict of interest.

After Boe withdrew from the case, Galliher said he was left naked in a jail cell, “without clothes or a toothbrush,” for 10 to 14 days.

His mother, Marlene Traynor, who visited him in jail, said he was given clothes only briefly to see her in a visitors’ room.

“He was just sitting there holding his head, rocking back and forward,” Traynor said in describing her injured son.

She said her son told her the beating occurred as he and other inmates were being moved from one area to another, and he fell while handcuffed.

“He told me he was walking along up the stairs with the others when all of a sudden from behind he got knocked to the ground by one of the guards” Traynor said. “He said then instantly there were six people kicking as he was on the ground.

“He told me he begged the jailers, `please don’t kick me any more.’ They then took him to solitary confinement, where they stripped him of his clothes for 10 to 14 days, depriving him of a toothbrush and medical treatment.”

Galliher was without an attorney for at least one court appearance, public records show.

Finally, the public defender’s office persuaded private attorney David Miller to take Galliher’s case. Boe said the defender’s office could only offer $1,000 in legal fees, and most attorneys couldn’t be bothered for that small amount.

“This is a prime example of the compromises a public defender has to make because of under-funding and inadequate resources,” said Boe, who believes the case may involve civil rights violations.

“It’s tough thinking I could have helped document a possible case of brutal treatment,” Boe said, “especially this type of deal, where a victim gets victimized all over again.”

Traynor said she’s convinced her son was “targeted because he spoke about being sexually abused by a deputy. I feel sure that there were people, particularly in law enforcement, that were mad at him because he spoke out.”

Shaking her head, she said, “We just believe it would be in his best interests now not to come back to Spokane.”

Galliher now lives near Seattle.