California prison guard sentenced in ‘Code of Silence’ cover-up involving inmate death
After two trials and a tearful plea for compassion, a former Sacramento prison guard was sentenced Monday to six months in prison in a “Code of Silence” cover-up involving the death of a 65-year-old inmate.
Former Sgt. Brenda Villa, 32, who prosecutors originally argued should get more than six years in prison, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb following a nearly three-hour hearing over what a fair punishment would be.
“Your honor, I’m a good person,” Villa told the judge as she broke down before he announced his sentence. “I’ve had a tough journey in life.”
Shubb noted that one of the crimes of which she was convicted — lying to a federal grand jury — is a serious crime and requires punishment.
But he noted that another defendant in the case, who was sentenced to 21 months after a guilty plea, served only six to seven months before being moved to a halfway house.
He added that Villa already has been punished with felony convictions, mental breakdowns and post-traumatic stress disorder from the charges she faced.
“I don’t believe Ms. Villa is going to commit any more crimes,” Shubb said. “I don’t.”
Villa was convicted in December of one count of conspiracy to commit falsification of records and three counts of falsification of records in the cover-up of an attack on inmate Ronnie Price, the second trial Villa had faced in the case.
A separate jury convicted her last July of perjury, but deadlocked on the other counts.
She and two other guards were charged in connection with a cover up over the death of Price, an inmate at California State Prison, Sacramento, who was injured in 2016 while being moved through the prison with his hands cuffed behind his back and legs shackled.
As Price was being escorted, guard Arturo Pacheco yanked his legs out from under him and sent him crashing face-first to the ground.
He died two days later from a pulmonary embolism at UC Davis Medical Center, and Villa, Pacheco and guard Ashley Aurich were accused of covering up the attack on Price by filing false reports on what happened.
Aurich and Pacheco were accompanied by another guard at the time — Arturo Luna — and Villa was accused of keeping his name out of reports on the incident because Luna and Pacheco had been involved in an earlier use of force incident and having them involved in a second one would look bad.
Villa’s attorneys maintained that she did nothing wrong, arguing that she was new in her job, did not know that Price had been attacked when she arrived at the scene and immediately sought medical help for Price.
“She never acted to ‘cover up’ a known excessive force incident,” Assistant Federal Defender Jerome Price wrote in arguing for a sentence of 15 months of home detention. “At bottom, she was a new hire with immense supervisory responsibilities and placed in a toxic work environment without the training and guidance necessary to perform at the level expected by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”
Price argued to the judge and in court papers that Villa had only been in her job at New Folsom for two weeks and had no incentive to lie on behalf of other officers.
“In the short time that Ms. Villa was a sergeant, she had already earned the reputation of ‘Sergeant do too much’ and ‘Sergeant by the book,’ which are not the type of nicknames earned by someone who wanted to demonstrate her willingness to cover for her officers’ misdeeds,” he wrote.
Prosecutors Rosanne Rust and Michael Anderson, who handled both trials against Villa, argued in court papers that she deserved an 80-month sentence and that her “conduct must be punished to account for her role as a sergeant, her overall role in the incident in question, and to ensure the proper administration of justice.”
“Otherwise, crimes in prison facilities will continue to be committed and go undetected,” prosecutors wrote.
After lengthy discussions in court Monday over sentencing guidelines, the prosecutors reduced their sentencing recommendation to five years and three months.
But Shubb said he was troubled by the idea of sentencing Villa to more than Aurich had received because he did not consider her conduct to be comparable to Aurich’s.
He also questioned prosecutors about why Luna was not charged in the case, but Rust said she did not want to discuss charging decisions at Villa’s sentencing hearing.
“This is a difficult decision for me,” the judge said. “It has been on my mind for a long time.”
Shubb said the sentence he imposed was “sufficient, fair, just and reasonable.”
“I can’t impose anything more, in good conscience,” Shubb said, adding that he was also ordering her to participate in outpatient mental health treatment.
“You’re not the same person that you were before, and I want to get you back to being that person,” the judge said.
Villa is the third officer to be sentenced in connection with Price’s death, which also is the subject of a civil rights lawsuit.
Pacheco pleaded guilty last July to two counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and two counts of falsifying records and was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison.
Aurich, his partner during the escort when Price was attacked, pleaded guilty in January 2021 to falsifying records in a federal investigation and was sentenced to 21 months in prison but served only a fraction of that.
