James Fontano, a former inmate who served less than a year for a drug offense, will collect $450,000 from taxpayers to settle his lawsuit filed after he was disciplined for reporting that he had been repeatedly raped by a cellmate at Logan Correctional Center.
“He was a non-violent offender with no gang affiliations, expected to serve substantially less than one year in prison,” his attorneys wrote in a lawsuit filed four years ago. “He had no prior experience with the criminal justice system. … Plaintiff’s offense was trivial in comparison to the crimes for which most of Logan’s 2,000 inmates are incarcerated.”
Fontano, who is five-foot-seven and weighs 150 pounds, had no gang affiliations, which made him vulnerable, according to his lawyers who announced the settlement today. He was 20 years old when he was locked in a two-person cell with Quentin Robinson, a Gangster Disciple who weighed 185 pounds and was serving 20 years for armed robbery.
Robinson had a history of starting fights in prison, according to Fontano’s lawsuit. The inmates were locked together in a prison wing reserved for gang members with disciplinary problems, according to Fontano’s federal court complaint. It was, attorneys wrote, known as one of the most dangerous areas in the prison.
“Get up and drop ‘em,” Robinson ordered Fontano shortly after midnight on Aug. 3, 2011, according to the lawsuit. Robinson then beat and anally raped Fontano.
Without reporting the rape, Fontano the next day asked to be moved. His request was refused, and he was beaten and raped again that night, according to the lawsuit. The day after that, he says, Robinson tried to rape him again while he was getting ready for a GED class. He ran from his cell, yelling. Afraid to return to his cell, he says that he told a guard that he’d been raped repeatedly and was afraid to return to his cell.
Fontano was placed in segregation. Dr. Saleh Obaisi, the prison’s medical officer, examined Fontano and found no evidence of rape, according to the lawsuit. The doctor, Fontano says, accused him of lying and told inappropriate jokes during the examination. Police were not called.
Robinson said that he hadn’t raped Fontano and passed a polygraph test, according to the lawsuit and prison records. Fontano said that he asked to take a polygraph test but was not allowed to do so. Kevin Standley, a Department of Corrections investigator, interviewed Fontano and warned him that he faced additional prison time if he didn’t retract his accusation. Fearing more time in prison, Fontano then told Standley that it didn’t happen, but he subsequently told a prison counselor that he had, in fact, been repeatedly raped by Robinson.
Based on Standley’s investigation, Fontano was found guilty of interfering with an investigation and giving false information to a prison employee by stating that he’d been raped. A charge of insolence was also upheld because Fontano had told Standley that he was worried about losing good time credit because of the incident. As punishment, Fontano was sent to segregation for two months, where he was allowed to wash just once a week and prevented from attending GED classes or visiting with his parents.
“Plaintiff was punished merely for asserting his rights as a victim of a violent crime,” Fontano’s lawyers wrote in his lawsuit.
Proof came when Fontano’s underwear was tested and showed bodily fluids with DNA that was consistent with Robinson’s DNA, said Alan Mills, Fontano’s lawyer. By then, Fontano was already out of prison.
Robinson was transferred to a different prison the same day that Fontano was released. Prison employees packed both men’s belongings, and items that belonged to Fontano ended up with Robinson, who found contact information for Fontano’s friends and family in a Bible, according to the lawsuit. Robinson used the contact information to make harassing phone calls to Fontano’s relatives and friends, attorneys for the plaintiff say in court records.
From the beginning, prison officials, including Alex Dawson, who was then warden and has since retired, and Standley, who has received a promotion since the incident, tried to discredit Fontano, Mills wrote in an email to Illinois Times.
“Dawson proudly claimed that no one had ever been raped in any facility he ran; Standley was proud of the fact that in his entire professional career, he had never seen a case where a prisoner had credibly claimed to have been raped,” Mills said. “The two made a perfect pair.”
Robinson, who is still serving time, was never disciplined, Mills said. He asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and did not provide information during a deposition, Mills said. Although Fontano’s attorneys accused Obaisi of conducting an “improper medical examination on Fontano and filing a false medical report, the doctor denied any wrongdoing and was dismissed from the lawsuit by agreement of the parties. Mills said that the plaintiff’s lawyers were concerned that keeping the doctor as a defendant might confuse jurors.
Department of Corrections officials could not immediately be reached for comment. Read the lawsuit here (PDF).
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Sep 1-7, 2016.
