The day after the charges were dropped, then-warden Patrick Covello decided to terminate the officer after reviewing the corrections department’s internal investigation into the alleged assault.Ĭovello found the evidence supported the allegation that the officer assaulted his girlfriend and he found that the officer lied to investigators about the assault, according to the report. Tanya Sierra, public affairs officer for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, said in an email that the office “can only proceed with a case if we believe we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The OIG report said the charges were dropped after the girlfriend sent the officer an email saying she couldn’t exactly remember how she had been injured.
#RICHARD J DONOVAN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY TRIAL#
The district attorney’s office dropped the charges against the officer the day the trial was set to take place, according to court documents. The officer was also forced to surrender a Glock 43 to police, according to court documents. The judge ordered a criminal protective order, routine in domestic abuse cases, against the officer and a jury trial was set for Aug. He was charged in San Diego County with two felonies: mayhem and corporal injury to a spouse or roommate, court records show. The next day, police arrested the officer at Donovan. Police located the woman’s severed thumb in the parking lot of her apartment complex, but medical personnel couldn’t reattach it because it had been severed down to the first joint, the report said. Medical personnel brought the woman to a hospital where she received six stitches for a laceration on her lip. The girlfriend said the correctional officer sped off before authorities arrived, the report said. 15, 2018, Carlsbad police responded to a call from a woman who said her boyfriend, a correctional officer, punched her in the face and severed her thumb by slamming a truck door on her hand, according to the report and court documents. Inewsource is not naming the corrections officer because the criminal charges against him were eventually dropped. The corrections department refused to provide inewsource with his internal personnel record. The accused officer still works at Donovan today. Donovan state prison in Otay Mesa is shown on Dec.
#RICHARD J DONOVAN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY FREE#
The decision not to discipline the officer “ignores the dynamics of domestic violence, revictimizes the girlfriend who suffered through a traumatic event and is permanently disfigured, and allows the officer to remain discipline free and maintain his position of authority,” the OIG wrote. The report from the OIG, an independent state prison oversight agency, accused Pollard and other officials of faulty decision-making and criticized the state corrections department’s tendency to give “undue credence” to its officers. However, inewsource confirmed through court records and through the Inspector General’s public information officer, Shaun Spillane, that the report concerns Donovan and former-warden Pollard. The OIG published the report without naming the prison, warden or corrections officer involved. Inewsource is first to report that the OIG was writing about Donovan and Pollard. Pollard withdrew the previous warden’s disciplinary action against the officer, in agreement with a Skelly officer, who presided over the disciplinary proceedings, and high level department officials who said there were inconsistencies in the girlfriend’s story and a lack of evidence pointing to the officer’s guilt.Ī report from the Office of Inspector General published in June 2020 concluded that the corrections officer should nevertheless have been disciplined. Pollard’s tenure leading Donovan started with a decision the state’s watchdog for prisons thought was so questionable it prompted a review and a public report.Ī Donovan correctional officer was criminally charged after a fight with his girlfriend left her with six stitches and a severed thumb. He has not responded to those requests for comment. Inewsource reached out to Pollard multiple times for this story. “I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to retiring Warden Marcus Pollard for 27 years of exemplary service to the Department,” she wrote. In the notice of resignation, Connie Gibson, director of California Department Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Division of Adult Institutions, heaped praise on Pollard. “I have served the State for over 27 years and it is time to enjoy my family,” Pollard wrote.
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