0:00

From the Center for Investigative Reporting

0:02

and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm

0:05

Al Letzen. So it is my privilege to

0:07

introduce to you Mr. and Mrs. Valentino

0:09

and Irma Rodriguez. You may

0:11

kiss the bride on vessel.

0:18

On a hot day in early October 2020, Valentino

0:21

and Irma, who goes by Mimi,

0:24

became Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. I

0:26

wore this big white ball gown. It

0:29

had a cream undertone and then it had

0:32

like white lace and it sparkled. It was

0:34

really nice. They were married

0:36

in a cathedral in downtown Sacramento. The

0:39

church was beautiful. I mean, so many people showed up.

0:41

My parents were, they both walked me down the aisle

0:43

and then at the end of the aisle I got

0:45

to see his parents and it was just nice. I

0:49

have a great partner in life. I couldn't

0:51

ask for anything different. This whole

0:54

wedding, I felt it strange

0:56

that I wasn't nervous or I wasn't

0:58

dreading the day. I was

1:00

excited and I wanted it to happen. And

1:03

it clicked with me when I was standing

1:05

up there on the altar today that I'm

1:07

right where I'm supposed to be in life. Earlier

1:10

that year, Valentino had taken a

1:12

leave from his job at the

1:15

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,

1:17

or CDCR. He was

1:19

a correctional officer at New Folsom Prison and

1:22

it was a job that Mimi and

1:24

the rest of Valentino's family saw was

1:26

changing it. But at the

1:28

wedding, it seemed like the start of a new

1:30

chapter. It was a perfect day for

1:33

a long time. He was so stuck on the prison and I

1:35

think for that day specifically, it just kind of brought

1:37

him into a place of like, I

1:40

am getting married. I'm

1:42

moving forward with my life. And

1:44

then tragically, about three weeks after

1:47

the wedding, Mimi came home

1:49

to find Valentino not breathing. She

1:51

called an ambulance and tried to revive him,

1:54

but Valentino was already gone. He

1:56

was 30 years old when he died. celebration

2:00

of life after, but we had that celebration of life at

2:02

the same place where we had our wedding. I

2:05

just remember just sitting there, with my

2:08

arms crossed, just looking into the crowd like

2:10

I was dancing right there with him. Like,

2:14

what are we celebrating? And I was

2:16

just so hurt. And I just went home and

2:18

just screamed. But

2:20

Valentino wasn't just a correctional officer.

2:23

He was also a whistleblower. We'd

2:26

spoken up about corruption and abuse by

2:28

his fellow officers just days before he

2:30

died. It's how his story

2:32

got on the radar of KQED reporter

2:34

Suki Lewis. This

2:36

week, we're partnering with Suki and her

2:39

reporting team who just released a new

2:41

season of the podcast On Our Watch.

2:44

In it, they follow Valentino's experience

2:46

at New Folsom and look

2:48

into how this prison works and what's getting

2:50

covered up. Just

2:53

to note, this hour includes discussions

2:55

of substance use disorder and graphic

2:57

descriptions of violence. Suki

2:59

starts the story on a drive up

3:02

to Valentino's parents' house. A

3:07

little more than two years after Officer

3:10

Valentino Rodriguez died in

3:12

December 2022, our

3:19

reporting team went to go see his family.

3:22

We're driving

3:24

from the Bay Area through rice

3:26

paddies and apple orchards to West

3:29

Sacramento, a city on the outskirts

3:31

of the state capitol. Just

3:33

everything about this case just raises

3:36

questions. That's my co-reporter,

3:38

Julie Small. The official

3:40

cause of Valentino's death was fentanyl

3:42

intoxication. But his

3:45

family, and especially his father, Val

3:47

Sr., still aren't satisfied with how

3:49

it was investigated. It makes you

3:51

think the worst or certainly Val keeps going

3:53

over and over at Mr.'s head while

3:55

seeing him trying to tie

3:57

up the loose ends. We

4:01

also think there might be more to

4:03

the story of Valentino's death. But

4:05

they said no signs of foul play. Julie's

4:09

been talking to Val Sr. for the past

4:11

few months. It's taken a while

4:13

to gain his trust. Today,

4:15

Stephen Rascone, our producer, is along

4:18

to record. So

4:20

today is like an icebreaker. I think so. It's

4:23

my first chance to meet Valentino's

4:25

parents. Valentino Rodriguez Sr.

4:28

and his wife Irma. Inside,

4:37

the walls are covered with photos. They've

4:39

got a good-looking family, five

4:42

grandchildren at the time, and

4:44

their four adult kids. And one thing about them,

4:46

all four of them just sat there and talked

4:48

and made fun of each other and laughed. Kids

4:51

were really close. Yeah. We were very

4:53

close kids. For his dad, Valentino's death

4:55

started him on this search to find

4:57

answers. From the police, the

5:00

FBI, the prison, he wants

5:02

to understand what happened to his son,

5:04

and why, and who's responsible. But

5:07

instead of finding answers, Val

5:09

Sr. just keeps finding more questions.

5:12

This thing is just all tangled. I'm

5:15

just trying to untangle it. Now,

5:19

Val Sr. says, he feels like a stereotype

5:21

out of a true crime series on

5:23

TV, the grieving parent

5:25

on a quest for justice. And

5:27

here I am in the driver's

5:29

seat. And I

5:32

couldn't do it any other way. But

5:34

I never wanted to be that

5:36

person on TV, right? Just consumed

5:39

with it. Yeah.

5:42

Would you be able to tell

5:44

us your favorite story of your

5:47

son? With

5:49

him, there's a lot. Irma

5:53

points out Valentino in a little league team

5:55

photo. He looks about 11 or 12. She

5:59

says he's a little bit of a He wasn't any good at baseball.

6:01

He wasn't very good at soccer either. I

6:04

had all four kids playing. I

6:07

remember when I used to watch him go wrestle,

6:10

he always lose. But

6:14

after he was done, he'd be talking to the

6:16

guy that beat him up. Yeah. Maybe

6:18

friends would like to talk. Yeah, center

6:21

talking to him. They

6:24

tell us this was typical Valentino.

6:27

Goofy, dreamy, smart, eager

6:30

to turn enemies into friends. After

6:33

college, when he told them he was going to

6:35

train to be a correctional officer, his parents

6:38

were kind of surprised. They

6:40

weren't a law enforcement family. But

6:42

he'd have job security and good benefits.

6:46

One of Valentino's first assignments was

6:48

working on death row at San

6:50

Quentin State Prison, the oldest

6:52

prison in California. They'd

6:54

often carpool to work with a bunch of

6:56

other correctional officers. And on

6:59

the way back, they'd get dropped off at

7:01

In-N-Out Burger. I was a

7:03

cashier and he'd come in in his

7:06

little green suit. He's so

7:08

cute. In his little boots. That's

7:11

Mimi again, talking to my colleague Julie.

7:14

She calls him cute, but Valentino was

7:16

not a little man. He

7:18

was 5'7 and at least 200 pounds. Green

7:22

shaven with dark hair and big brown

7:24

eyes. So his order was

7:26

a 3x3 ketchup only no salt. The

7:29

cheese fried no salt and then a large 7' up. So

7:32

I knew his order from the moment because of course, you

7:34

know, the cute guy comes in. I'm

7:36

going to memorize his order. Mimi

7:38

recognized Valentino from a party she'd gone

7:40

to at his house thrown by his brother

7:43

Greg. But he started coming to

7:45

In-N-Out more often and I would give him free burgers or

7:47

shakes when my manager

7:49

wasn't looking. She

7:52

says they fell hard for each other. And

7:55

just two months after they started dating,

7:57

her roommate moved out and she needed

7:59

to find a new place to live. I

8:02

was going to move into my brother's house, but

8:05

he was like, no, they should move in with me. And

8:07

I'm like, no, this is kind of soon. And

8:10

he's like, come on, think about

8:12

it. Mimi

8:15

moved in. And

8:18

it was right around this time that

8:20

Valentino got what he saw as a

8:22

big break, an opportunity to

8:25

work in a different prison. He

8:27

specifically chose Folsom. The

8:29

official name of new Folsom

8:32

is California State Prison Sacramento,

8:34

or CSPHIC. It's

8:36

a high-security prison that the state

8:38

set up to accommodate people with

8:40

risky medical conditions and mental health

8:42

needs. It also houses

8:44

active gang members and people who've

8:47

been convicted of some of the

8:49

most serious crimes. He said

8:51

he wanted to go there because it was the

8:54

most. He

8:56

said it was the most dangerous prison in California.

9:00

And he just wanted to be in there. There

9:07

are a lot of infamous prisons in this country

9:10

and a fair number here in California. They're

9:13

San Quentin with its death row, the

9:15

state's first Supermax, Pelican Bay, Corcoran,

9:18

where in the 90s, officers

9:20

allegedly set up gladiator-style fights

9:23

between rival gangs and

9:25

then shot incarcerated people to stop the

9:27

fights. But as

9:29

we dug through a bunch of data and

9:31

public records, we realized in the past decade,

9:34

new Folsom has been the most violent prison

9:36

in the state. And that violence

9:38

is committed by people who are locked up and

9:41

officers. We found that in

9:43

the six years after 2014, new

9:45

Folsom officers used serious force,

9:48

meaning they either badly injured someone or

9:50

used deadly force at a

9:52

rate three times higher than any other prison

9:54

in the state. CDCR

9:57

declined our multiple requests to

9:59

comment. on this finding. I've

10:02

done quite a bit of reporting on prisons,

10:04

and Julie's been reporting on prisons for even

10:06

longer. New Folsom just wasn't

10:08

on our radar in the same way. But

10:11

for now, it's important to know that with

10:13

just a year of experience as a correctional

10:15

officer, this is the

10:18

environment Valentino was walking into.

10:21

He was excited to go into this prison. He

10:23

was excited for the work. He was excited for what

10:25

he was going to learn. He

10:27

wanted to be an investigator in

10:29

this elite squad called the ISU,

10:32

or the Investigative Services Unit. A

10:37

prison is like its own city, and

10:39

the ISU squad are like the police

10:41

force of the prison. They've got

10:43

a canine unit, a gang investigation

10:46

unit, a prosecution division, and

10:48

one for internal affairs to look

10:50

into complaints of excessive force or

10:53

allegations of officer corruption. Walking

10:56

through New Folsom, the squad stood

10:58

out. They had special black

11:01

and green patches on their uniforms. They

11:04

could also go anywhere in the prison

11:06

they wanted, total access. Valentino's

11:08

goal was to earn his patch and

11:10

get into that squad. But

11:13

first, he had to pay his dues. Officer

11:21

Valentino Rodriguez's first assignment

11:23

was working in the prison's

11:25

psychiatric unit, guarding one of

11:27

the most vulnerable and difficult parts

11:29

of the population, people with

11:32

severe mental illnesses. I've

11:36

talked to a number of people incarcerated in this

11:39

unit, and it sounds like a really tough place

11:41

to be. It can be

11:43

very loud and chaotic. Sometimes the people

11:45

in this unit are angry and confrontational, while

11:48

others are simply terrified or

11:50

heavily medicated. And

11:52

officers like Valentino are required to get

11:54

training in how to prevent incarcerated

11:57

people from hurting each other and

11:59

themselves. Mimi

12:04

Rodriguez told my colleague Julie and me

12:06

that working in the psychiatric unit really

12:08

took a toll on Valentino. He

12:11

would talk about how draining it was

12:13

and he would come home drained. He

12:15

worked double shifts so he could get more days

12:17

off in a row to recharge. That's

12:19

when he would talk more about work and be like, yeah, like,

12:21

you know, it was a little stressful and I'm

12:24

dealing with this or I'm talking about this.

12:26

But you know, I'm happy to go in

12:28

and he was always very enthusiastic. About

12:34

two and a half years after he'd

12:36

gotten to New Folsom, Valentino's hard work

12:38

looked like it was paying off. Remember

12:41

the squad that Detective Unit Valentino

12:43

was aiming for? An

12:46

officer there went on leave for

12:48

PTSD and there was a vacancy

12:50

on the team. One of the

12:52

supervisors who knew Valentino thought he'd be good

12:54

at the job and gave him the chance

12:56

to fill in. But on

12:58

a temporary basis, to get

13:00

the position permanently, he'd have to impress the

13:03

right people. He's like,

13:05

yes, of course, I'll do it. I

13:07

mean, he was ready. Valentino called

13:09

to let his parents know he got

13:11

promoted. He told them it

13:13

was a really good position, one that a lot

13:16

of other people wanted and that

13:18

he was the youngest on the team. I

13:21

asked him, how was your first day? He goes, it was

13:23

a bunch of older guys that had been there. He called

13:25

them, oh, geez. I said, well, how'd it go? He goes,

13:27

I asked him, who the f*** are you? So

13:31

from the very beginning, there was tension on

13:33

the team. Some of the

13:35

people he worked with felt like he'd skipped

13:37

the line, that he hadn't done enough to

13:39

prove himself. At

13:42

first, he tried to earn their acceptance by

13:44

just working really hard, trying to prove that

13:46

he was up to the job. He

13:48

just continued to just put his head down and work. I

13:52

think that's what really bothered him, that he

13:54

would just try to do the right thing and it just didn't seem

13:56

like it was enough. Valentino

13:58

was making busts. cases. But

14:01

to some of his co-workers, this might

14:03

have made him seem like even more

14:05

of a threat because higher-ups were noticing

14:07

his work. Sometimes

14:10

he would text the guys for help and they'd have their

14:12

own group texts and they would like, they

14:14

wouldn't, they didn't want to help him. Some

14:17

of these group texts are pretty awful.

14:20

They mock his weight and call

14:22

him half-patch to remind him he's

14:24

still just a temporary member of

14:26

the squad. But

14:28

these messages would escalate even

14:30

further before they stopped. And

14:33

he used to go in on weekends to

14:38

work because some of the team

14:41

wasn't there to harass him. Nobody

14:43

was calling him names

14:45

or anything or intimidating him anyway, so he

14:48

liked going there on Saturdays, I know that,

14:50

he told me. An

14:53

attorney for these officers declined our

14:55

request to interview her clients. But

14:58

she said that any allegations that any

15:00

of them bullied, hazed, or harassed Valentino

15:03

are false. Val

15:05

Sr. says he wouldn't understand until much

15:08

later the full scope of what his

15:10

son was going through or of

15:12

the things he was being asked to do in the

15:14

name of this team. But

15:17

he did notice a change come over his son. He

15:19

wasn't sleeping and he gained 60 pounds

15:22

over the course of the year he was in

15:24

the ISU squad. Sometimes when

15:26

they were hanging out he'd get this

15:28

blank look on his face. I

15:31

could tell that he was starting to

15:33

build this mental mechanism where he knew

15:35

to turn things off. Because

15:38

I used to see him stare into space

15:41

and then he'd snap out of it. Val

15:43

Sr. says he was at the family Christmas

15:45

party. Valentino showed up late,

15:48

straight from work, around 10 o'clock

15:50

at night. And as soon as he

15:52

walked in the door, Val Sr. knew

15:54

something was wrong. And

15:57

I could just see his face just like...

16:00

something really bothering him. Val

16:02

Sr. asked him what was going on. And

16:05

that's when he took his phone out and he showed me the video.

16:08

The scene that Val Sr. saw on

16:10

his son's cell phone was incredibly violent,

16:13

a video taken by surveillance cameras and

16:15

one of the most high security housing

16:17

units in New Folsom. The

16:20

camera angle is from inside the control

16:22

booth, which looks out on two tiers

16:24

of cells. Right in

16:27

front of the booth, there's an open area on

16:29

the ground floor called the day room. In

16:32

this day room, there are these metal desks

16:34

in a semicircle with clear dividers in between

16:36

them. In the video,

16:38

Val Sr. saw a man shackled to

16:40

one of these chairs with

16:42

two other guys standing over him. This

16:46

guy, this kid's being stabbed over and over

16:48

and over. And

16:52

he literally would shrug his shoulders and cover his neck while they

16:54

were trying to stab him in the neck. And then they would

16:56

go back down to the chest and then he would try to

16:58

cover his chest by

17:00

concaving his chest inward. And then they'd go back to

17:02

his neck. And it was just back and forth until

17:04

finally the kid threw himself on the floor. And

17:07

they proceeded to just stab him. The

17:11

man on the floor was now lifeless.

17:14

Val Sr. watched as two attackers

17:17

painted his blood across their faces.

17:21

But Valentino wanted his dad to

17:23

notice something else. And

17:25

he had said, look at that, the guy in the tower is not even

17:28

aiming and they're using rubber bullets. Valentino

17:31

was pointing out to his dad that

17:33

the officer in the control booth didn't

17:36

use his rifle to immediately stop the

17:38

deadly threat. He fired his

17:40

less lethal weapon that shoots rounds made

17:42

out of hard foam. And

17:44

he fired it way too late. I

17:47

tried not to emphasize or talk about or look at

17:49

it. I just wanted to go on to my little

17:51

Christmas party. So I told

17:53

him to put that

17:55

thing away. And

17:58

He just, like, just believed as he snapped on. But.

18:01

That was an all. Knowing

18:04

Chino, was also instructed to

18:06

write up a particular type

18:08

of confidential report for statewide

18:10

gang investigators. The. Report was

18:12

supposed to lay out how the killing

18:14

was tied to a dispute. Between

18:16

rival gangs. A

18:18

lot of questions would later be

18:21

raised about that report and who

18:23

was really behind the murder. Cdc

18:25

are said it cannot comment on

18:27

the case because it's part of

18:29

an active investigation. As

18:33

senior lenders about this murder kill,

18:35

his son was found dead by certain

18:37

on. To the case in less than a

18:39

year after this Christmas party. And

18:42

he was going. Other people who suspected

18:44

there was something really wrong about what

18:46

happened in that day Realm and New.

18:48

Full, some. Since

18:52

his son pass vow Senior has taken

18:55

on a new rule. Now he's become

18:57

the investigator is collected everything he can

18:59

find about the murder of the day

19:01

room at the prison to see if

19:04

he connects to Valentino's deaths. Coming.

19:07

Up you go to serve as you decide

19:09

right? I don't want to paint a picture,

19:12

I just want the troops over us on

19:14

that's next on reveal. Support.

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20:00

election year so it's not enough to just

20:02

follow along. You need to understand what's happening

20:04

so you are fully informed in

20:06

November. Every weekday on

20:09

the NPL politics podcast our political

20:11

reporters break down important stories and

20:13

back stories from the campaign trail.

20:15

Do you understand why it

20:17

matters to listen to the

20:19

NPL politics podcast wherever you get your

20:21

podcasts? From

20:26

the Center for Investigative Reporting and

20:28

PRX this is Reveal. I'm Al

20:31

Ledson. Today we're bringing

20:33

you a story from KQED the

20:35

latest season of their podcast On

20:37

Our Watch. Their series

20:39

focuses on one California prison

20:41

and a culture of silence

20:43

and corruption there. Okay

20:46

so it's me

20:49

Suki and Julie and Steven and we're

20:51

here at Julie's house. It's

20:54

been two days since Suki, her

20:56

co-reporter Julie Small and producer Steven

20:59

Rascone went to visit the

21:01

parents of Valentino Rodriguez and

21:03

the crew has their work cut out for them. Looking

21:06

through the materials that are on

21:08

here that are many many tens

21:10

of gigabytes of information

21:12

I'm trying to figure out

21:15

what's going on here. Valentino's

21:17

dad, Val Sr. gave them a hard

21:19

drive with all the evidence he's collected

21:21

in the two years since his son's

21:24

death. He's been trying

21:26

to figure out if the fentanyl

21:28

overdose that took Valentino's life has

21:30

anything to do with the prison where he

21:32

was a correctional officer, new

21:34

fulsome. Valentino died

21:37

just days after reporting staff

21:39

misconduct including harassment and

21:42

corruption at the prison and Val

21:44

Sr. has been investigating on his own

21:46

ever since. I owe

21:48

that to him and I'm going to go as

21:52

far as I can and in

21:54

the end if nothing's, this is nothing I tried,

21:56

right? I'll find my answers with

21:59

my time back. On

22:02

this hard drive is also a duplicate

22:04

of Valentino's cell phone with messages going

22:06

back to 2017. Suki

22:12

and her team start there. It

22:25

started looking into Valentino's story to

22:28

see if the death of this whistleblower

22:30

was connected to all those cases we'd

22:32

found showing off the chart's use of force

22:34

at New Folsom. But

22:36

Val Sr. was already way ahead of

22:38

us in investigating his son's death. Every

22:43

few weeks my co-reporter Julie would meet

22:45

up with Val Sr. to get more

22:47

of the evidence he'd collected and

22:50

she'd share what we were finding with him. So

22:53

we started a database of

22:55

the guards' names and

22:57

then different allegations against them.

22:59

Building this relationship with Val

23:02

Sr. has been tricky. He's

23:04

grieving and he feels like he was burned

23:06

by other people who said they'd look into

23:09

his son's death and then dropped it. I

23:13

just want this to work both ways. Right.

23:16

Right? I need to know what

23:18

you're doing. Okay. That's all

23:20

I ever asked. My man, nobody

23:23

even knows we're having these meetings other than my wife. He

23:25

says he's not trying to sway our reporting

23:28

and it doesn't seem like he is. But

23:30

it does feel like he's still testing

23:32

us to see how serious we are

23:35

about this investigation. You go through

23:37

stuff and you decide, right? I don't want to paint a picture.

23:40

Right. I never have. Okay. I'm

23:42

not going to bullsh** nobody and ruin

23:46

anyone's lives. I just want

23:48

the truth told. That's all I'm doing. Yeah. That's

23:50

what we want too. But after

23:52

years of working as reporters, Julie and

23:55

I both know the truth can be

23:57

a really complicated thing. harassment

24:00

Valentino experienced from the squad.

24:03

As we go through Valentino's phone we

24:05

can see that he was called ugly

24:07

names but we can also

24:09

see that Valentino sometimes used offensive language

24:11

too, calling his gaming

24:13

friend a homophobic slur or sending

24:15

a gif of a swinging penis.

24:18

These guys, because they're all guys on

24:20

these text threads, work in a

24:22

prison. Their conversations are dark

24:25

and their jokes are not usually

24:27

kind. But

24:30

there's also a particular edge

24:32

of nastiness to some of

24:34

the other guys' texts that

24:36

feels different than Valentino's off-color

24:38

joking. One of our

24:40

producers agreed to read some of them so you can

24:42

hear what was being said. Heads

24:44

up, it's vulgar but we bleep the

24:47

slurs. Is that the from a

24:49

facility? Drink up. In your mouth

24:51

you tell your lady I

24:53

said hi. You send a picture

24:55

of your girl's ass. Those

24:58

messages are all from this one

25:00

guy, Daniel Garland, and

25:02

Valentino doesn't usually take the bait. But

25:05

there is this one time where you can see

25:07

he just snaps. It

25:09

starts with Valentino texting the group

25:12

something totally innocuous. How to

25:14

log in to a new HR system for

25:16

vacation requests. He's just being helpful.

25:20

And Garland writes back, who gives it? That's

25:23

when Valentino loses it and says, go

25:26

f*** yourself, you don't. And

25:29

this is what Garland does in response. He

25:31

sends this weird video to the group. It's of

25:34

a guy who's probably in his early 20s in

25:36

a black and red sweatshirt

25:38

at what looks like the gym, talking

25:40

straight into the camera. You

25:42

ever get out of pocket again and slap your fat ass?

25:45

You ever get out of pocket again and slap your fat ass? That

25:49

was a flat out threat and

25:51

when he got to work they laughed

25:53

at him. They laughed about it. The

25:56

guy saying he was gonna slap

25:58

Valentino was actually Garland's son. For Valentino,

26:01

this was the last straw.

26:04

Garland had been insulting him since he joined

26:06

the squad about a year earlier. CDCR

26:09

does have a no tolerance

26:12

policy against discrimination and harassment,

26:14

which these text messages fell outside the

26:17

lines of. In an email,

26:19

an attorney for Garland and some of the

26:21

other officers in those text threads stated

26:24

that her clients never bullied,

26:26

hazed, or harassed Officer Rodriguez

26:28

while he worked at the

26:30

prison. When Valentino

26:32

first got that video from Garland's son, he

26:34

told his dad it wasn't a big deal,

26:37

but he told other people it really bothered

26:39

him. In the back of my hand I kept

26:41

thinking all the time, well, the warden knows who he is, it's going

26:43

to take care of him. There's people that are able to take care

26:46

of him. Yes, that's not the case. Just

26:52

after the new year, January 2020, Valentino

26:55

was stressed about that gruesome stabbing

26:57

that happened in the day room,

27:00

the one with the video that he showed his dad. Valentino

27:03

was still working on writing his reports

27:05

for that. He'd worked

27:07

so hard to get here, achieved his

27:09

dream of being an investigator, but

27:12

now all he could think about was quitting. He wrote

27:15

this note into his phone.

27:18

It's in bold letters,

27:20

reasons to leave. Harassment, disrespect,

27:22

threats, whistleblower violations, voter off-team, keep

27:24

your mouth shut or you'll be

27:26

fired. You do stupid work, they

27:28

do important. Just

27:33

so you know, in his text messages,

27:36

Valentino complains that the person telling him

27:38

to stay quiet and demeaning his work

27:40

was his boss, the new head

27:42

of the unit, a guy named

27:44

Sergeant David Anderson. Anderson

27:46

was also on some of the terrible

27:49

text threads, so it doesn't look

27:51

like Valentino felt like he could turn to him

27:53

to step in. Anderson did

27:55

not respond to multiple requests for

27:57

comment. Around the same time,

28:00

that he wrote that note. He also texted

28:02

a friend that he was getting out soon.

28:05

He had a plan to stick around for

28:07

a few months and then switch to a

28:09

part-time position where he could work a few

28:11

shifts and still get benefits. But

28:14

a couple weeks later his plans to try

28:16

and stick it out fell apart. I

28:19

remember him coming home and telling

28:21

me that he broke down

28:23

to the assistant warden. That's

28:26

Mimi Rodriguez, Valentino's wife. And

28:29

he was sobbing and he had

28:31

told her how he felt about things and

28:33

he felt just like everything was kind of closing in on

28:35

him. She tells Julie and

28:37

me that Valentino had a really rough day

28:39

at work. The person he

28:41

fell apart in front of was Gina Jones,

28:44

the chief deputy warden of the prison. She

28:47

was in charge of the squad, the

28:49

investigative services unit. And I remember

28:51

sitting on the couch with him and him saying, I left

28:55

work, I left, it's gone.

28:57

I'm not going to be there anymore. I broke down to

28:59

the assistant warden and I guess

29:02

he opened up to her about everything that was going on.

29:05

I remember this very clearly. He

29:07

said, this is my identity. He's

29:09

like, I feel like I've given up on everything. Mimi

29:12

says something else happened in this meeting

29:14

too. She says Valentino

29:16

made some serious allegations about

29:18

his fellow officers. That

29:22

officers could have been

29:24

planting drugs on inmates, could have

29:26

been planting drugs on other officers.

29:29

And I know that he

29:32

was very nervous to talk to anybody

29:34

because he didn't want anyone to retaliate.

29:38

Mimi's memory of this incident is all

29:40

we have to go on. But this is

29:43

important because from what we've

29:45

been able to figure out, this

29:47

would be the first time Valentino

29:49

told higher ups in charge of

29:52

the investigative services unit that the

29:54

squad, the very officers investigating crimes

29:56

in the prison might be committing

29:58

serious misconduct. Mimi says says at the

30:00

time she didn't fully consider the implications

30:02

of that. What kind

30:05

of obligation to report or investigate

30:07

that Valentino's allegations might have triggered

30:09

for Jones. But now she does.

30:12

I do believe that at that time she had a

30:14

right to say something or at least report it. Mention

30:16

something, write it down, document it if anything.

30:19

But from what I understand, nothing

30:21

was even documented, which I find very

30:23

interesting. We don't

30:25

know if Jones documented this meeting in

30:27

some way or not. But to be

30:29

clear, Mimi says Valentino also didn't want

30:32

to make an official report. There's

30:34

an unwritten code among correctional officers.

30:37

Never tell on each other. But

30:40

as a supervisor, Jones did have

30:42

an explicit obligation to act immediately

30:44

to stop the harassment. We

30:47

asked for an interview with Jones,

30:49

a CVCR spokeswoman declined, stating that

30:52

Wardens can't talk about personnel matters.

30:55

I remember specifically saying, well,

30:57

you know, if these people are bothering you and

31:00

hurting you, you need to report that. But

31:02

he didn't want it to go back to him.

31:04

He didn't want it to get traced back that

31:07

he had said anything about the team or

31:09

that any type of retaliation could have

31:11

happened to him in his work. Now

31:15

everyone's memory is imperfect. And Mimi

31:17

wasn't in this meeting with Jones.

31:20

So we don't know for sure what he told

31:22

her the day he broke down. But

31:24

we did hear that this happened from another

31:27

officer who didn't want to go on the

31:29

record. But he confirmed that he'd also heard

31:31

that Valentino had made these allegations to

31:33

Jones. We asked

31:35

CVCR if Jones had been questioned

31:37

about this incident or her knowledge

31:39

of discriminatory behavior in the unit.

31:42

But the agency declined to comment. The

31:46

only action we know for sure the

31:48

chief deputy warden took was to put

31:50

Valentino out on medical leave for stress.

31:53

His diagnosis was based on a number

31:55

of factors that stretched back to a

31:57

2017 altercation with an incorrect incarcerated

32:00

person that had sent the young officer

32:02

to the hospital with a concussion. At

32:05

that time, Valentino was prescribed

32:07

opioid painkillers and sent home.

32:10

Eventually, a psychologist diagnosed Valentino

32:12

with anxiety and depression, and

32:15

at some point, he started having panic

32:17

attacks. Looking at his

32:19

medical records, his symptoms weren't all because

32:21

of this one altercation, though. He

32:24

also witnessed terrible things at New

32:26

Folsom, homicides and beatings, and

32:29

along with the rejection and alienation he felt

32:31

from his team, it seems

32:33

like this created a powerful and traumatic

32:35

feedback loop. In

32:40

January 2020, something

32:42

else happened. One day

32:45

Mimi came home from work, and the

32:47

house was completely dark. He

32:49

was just sick. Like, it was the

32:51

kind of sickness I've never seen. And then

32:53

he just told me I've been struggling with something. He

32:58

was in withdrawal. Like

33:00

a lot of people affected by

33:02

the opioid epidemic, Valentino had become

33:04

dependent on pain pills. He

33:07

dealt with this before, years earlier, when he

33:09

was in college. He called his

33:11

parents for help, and they got him into rehab. He

33:14

told Mimi this time he felt like he

33:16

could stop using on his own. I

33:19

wish I would have reached out to his parents to

33:22

say he told me not to say anything, but I

33:26

just wanted him to know that he can trust me and that I

33:28

loved him and we were going to get past this. Mimi

33:31

kept her word to Valentino. And

33:34

though he was privately struggling, he presented a

33:36

different face to most of his friends and

33:39

family. His parents, Val Sr.

33:41

and Irma, say they had no idea this

33:43

was going on. They

33:46

were happy he was out of the prison, and even

33:49

better, he was coming to work with them

33:51

at the family pool business. I

33:53

just felt like I had them all to myself. He

33:55

was coming here and working all the time with me and his

33:57

brother, and I was always happy.

33:59

He worked really hard, he was very thorough. My

34:02

customers loved him. Valsinha's

34:04

grandfather had gotten into the pool business

34:06

years earlier, and Valsinha carried

34:09

it on, creating generation

34:11

pool plastering. He was

34:13

doing really well for his dad, but

34:15

I can tell that as

34:17

much as he loved working for his father, because he

34:19

did, he loved his dad. He

34:22

wanted, he missed his job. At

34:25

home, Mimi could tell Valentino was

34:27

not fine. He wasn't at

34:29

the prison physically, but mentally he was still

34:32

there. He was still talking to

34:34

people from the prison. He was still reaching out to

34:36

people from the prison, reaching out to him, telling him

34:38

what was going on within the prison. He

34:40

had not at all let that go. Mimi

34:44

tells my reporting partner Julie that

34:47

Valentino's truth at this time wasn't good. His

34:50

doctors were concerned about his blood pressure, and

34:52

he'd gained a lot of weight. She

34:55

says he was also getting increasingly

34:57

paranoid and frightened. At

34:59

one point he had put things at the

35:01

door, so if someone opened it,

35:03

you can hear the door open. He

35:06

also, like he had a gun and he would sleep with

35:08

it just to make sure, and I

35:10

would ask him like, is everything okay? You

35:13

know, who are you nervous about coming? What

35:15

is going on? Would you ever

35:17

answer that question? He would just tell me

35:19

not to worry. She did worry,

35:21

but she also saw that he was taking

35:23

steps to get help, seeing a

35:26

therapist, taking medication, and trying to

35:28

eat healthier. I just kept reassuring

35:30

him like, just let

35:33

this year pass, we're almost there. Just

35:36

breathe. Mimi

35:40

was trying everything she could, and

35:42

she thought maybe if they finally made

35:44

things official, it could jumpstart

35:46

their future together, and they could

35:49

leave behind the things that were holding him back.

35:52

They'd been engaged for over two years

35:54

now, but had put their wedding on

35:56

hold because of COVID-19 restrictions. As

36:00

the summer of 2020 went on, it looked

36:02

like things might be opening up again, and

36:04

they decided to go for it. We

36:07

ended up just saying, F it? We're

36:11

just gonna get married. But

36:17

less than two weeks after his wedding day,

36:20

on October 15th, Valentino

36:22

went back to New Folsom to meet

36:24

with the warden, the man

36:26

who's the head of the whole prison,

36:28

Jeff Lynch, telling him in person about

36:31

the harassment he'd received. He

36:33

told me that he went to go talk to the warden about

36:35

all the corruption that was going on within the prison, at

36:37

least within the officers that he was working with. He

36:40

told me that he had told the warden about

36:42

this one sergeant. I believe he was the sergeant

36:45

of that team, how he put his hands around

36:47

his neck, and he said, I can

36:49

make it look like an accident. We

36:52

only have Mimi's account of this

36:54

specific allegation, but we

36:56

do know that Valentino talked about

36:58

threats from Sergeant Anderson and members

37:00

of the squad. Documents

37:03

and recorded testimony Warden Lynch later gave

37:05

about this meeting largely corroborate

37:08

Mimi's account of what was

37:10

discussed. Valentino

37:12

told the warden that ISU

37:14

officers planted contraband on incarcerated

37:16

people. He spoke to the warden

37:19

for some time, so I'm assuming there was a lot more said. CDCR

37:22

did not respond to questions about this

37:25

meeting and said the warden can't comment

37:27

on personnel matters. And

37:29

that evening after the prison, Valentino

37:32

texted his dad. October

37:34

the 15th. And

37:37

he just texted me on the blues. I love you, Pop. Val

37:40

Sr. texted him back. I

37:42

love you too, kiddo. Val

37:44

Sr. says his son mentioned the meeting

37:46

to him too. He says

37:48

he told the warden everything. When

37:52

he emphasized everything, he'd always say

37:54

everything. What

37:56

Valentino meant by everything, we

37:58

still don't know. We do

38:00

know that after the meeting, the

38:03

warden had asked Valentino to write

38:05

up all his allegations into an

38:07

official report. He was asked

38:09

to write a memo, but he didn't do it. You

38:12

should have done it. But

38:14

he never got a chance to write the memo. Six

38:17

days later, on October 21,

38:21

2020, Mimi came home from having dinner with

38:23

her girlfriends and found Valentino,

38:26

swamped over in the bathroom, and

38:28

called 911. After

38:36

Valentino's death, calls of condolence came

38:38

in, and people stopped by the

38:40

shop. But there

38:42

was one call in particular that Val

38:44

Sr. kept waiting for. I

38:46

was under this stupid impression that the warden would call

38:48

me and say, hey, you know, I'm sorry about your

38:51

son. He's a

38:53

good man. We're going to make

38:55

sure, we're going to find out, you know,

38:57

nothing. It was just complete silence. The

39:00

warden never called. Coming

39:07

up, we sit down with

39:09

Suki and her co-reporter, Julie Small, to

39:11

hear where their investigation into the death

39:13

of this whistleblower led them. That's

39:17

next on Reveal. From

39:30

the Center for Investigative Reporting and

39:32

PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al

39:34

Ledson. Today

39:36

we're looking at New Folsom Prison in

39:39

California. It's the focus of

39:41

the latest season of the podcast on

39:43

our watch from KQED. We

39:46

just learned that Valentino Rodriguez, a

39:48

correctional officer at the prison, had

39:50

reported corruption by his colleagues just

39:52

days before his death. With

39:55

me to talk more about it are

39:57

KQED reporters Suki Lewis and Julie Small.

40:00

They co-reported the series. So

40:02

Julie, what happened with Valentino's

40:04

allegations? Were they ever investigated?

40:08

Prison investigators did look into some

40:10

of Valentino's allegations, but there

40:12

are some real questions about the scope of

40:14

that investigation and also the

40:16

limited discipline that resulted. Valentino

40:19

alleged that members of the Investigative Services

40:22

Unit, which essentially polices the prison, broke

40:24

the law themselves by planting

40:27

contraband, such as drugs and weapons,

40:29

on incarcerated people. So then he told

40:31

the warden that these guys kept contraband in

40:33

their desks, but rather than calling on

40:35

an outside investigator who would be neutral,

40:37

the warden asked the in-house

40:40

supervisor to search these guys'

40:42

desks, and that search didn't

40:44

result in any discipline. However,

40:47

prison officials did investigate Valentino's

40:49

other allegations that officers in

40:51

the unit harassed him, using racial

40:53

and homophobic slurs, and

40:55

that investigation resulted in the dismissal of

40:58

two of the officers' lesser discipline

41:00

for another 10 correctional officers. So

41:02

the officers, they were disciplined, but

41:05

what about the supervisors? Were there

41:07

any consequences for them? We

41:09

don't know all the actions prison officials

41:11

took because only certain types of

41:13

internal records are open to the public, but

41:16

we found out that at least two of

41:18

the higher-ups who had direct knowledge of the

41:20

harassment and did not intervene, both

41:22

of them received promotions after his death.

41:25

We're talking about Valentino's supervisor, the one

41:27

who was on some of the inappropriate

41:29

text threads, and the chief

41:31

deputy warden, who Valentino broke down to

41:33

before leaving the prison. And

41:36

from what we can tell, there was no consequence

41:38

for the warden. He is still the warden. So

41:41

we know Val Sr.'s hypothesis is

41:43

that Valentino's death is somehow connected

41:45

to the prison. Did that

41:47

bear out in your reporting? Yes, to

41:49

some extent. I mean, one of the things

41:51

we learned is that the Workers' Compensation

41:53

Board asked a psychiatrist

41:55

to review all of Valentino's medical records

41:58

after he died to determine if he was dead. his

42:00

job contributed to his death. And

42:02

this doctor said, yes, over time, the

42:04

violence of the prison, the harassment of

42:06

fellow officers, the fear of retaliation,

42:08

if you told on them, put so much

42:11

psychological pressure on Valentino that

42:13

he could no longer cope with his anxiety. Now,

42:16

Val Sr. suspects that someone at the

42:18

prison was actually trying to get rid of his

42:20

son. And let me give

42:22

you some context about where Val Sr.'s suspicions

42:24

come from. Valentino had told his

42:26

father and his wife Mimi that some officers

42:28

in the unit were breaking the law and

42:31

that he had evidence that could get people at new

42:33

falls and fired and might even result in prison

42:35

time. Valentino had also told his

42:37

family that at least one officer had threatened

42:39

him. And so the fact that

42:42

six days after Valentino had reported misconduct

42:44

to the warden, he died alone in

42:46

his home remains a coincidence

42:48

that's hard to ignore. So while we

42:52

found nothing in our investigation to support the

42:54

theory that someone at the prison killed Valentino,

42:57

Val Sr. still has a lot of questions

42:59

that he feels law enforcement agencies never answered.

43:02

J.D. What can you tell us about

43:04

the police investigation? Did they take Val

43:06

Sr.'s concerns seriously? I mean, what was

43:08

the outcome? The West

43:10

Sacramento Police Chief actually talked to us

43:12

about this investigation. And the chief expressed

43:15

a lot of sympathy for Val Sr.

43:17

But he also saw him at the

43:19

time as a grieving father trying

43:21

to find a reason for his son's death. You

43:24

know, he says his officers found no signs

43:26

of foul play, no signs of

43:28

forced entry to the house where Valentino died

43:31

and no trauma to his body

43:33

to indicate a struggle. So they

43:35

didn't really view Valentino's death as

43:37

anything other than an accidental overdose.

43:40

The chief says it wasn't policy

43:42

then to investigate an overdose death

43:45

as a homicide back in 2020.

43:47

But Valentino's death did result

43:49

in a change to that policy. His

43:52

death was part of a wave of

43:54

fentanyl deaths in the region. And now

43:56

the West Sacramento Police Department has a

43:58

special investigations unit involved at the scene

44:00

when there's an overdose to do a

44:03

better job of collecting evidence and

44:05

pursuing the source of the fentanyl. And

44:08

Suki, what does Valentino's story tell

44:10

us more broadly about the experience

44:12

of being a correctional officer at

44:14

New Folsom? So what

44:16

Valentino experienced in terms of harassment

44:18

and intimidation was actually pretty common

44:20

among the officers who spoke to

44:22

us. But in the

44:25

final episode of the podcast, we

44:27

also dig into some internal affairs

44:29

records from across California prisons to

44:31

understand what discrimination and accountability for

44:33

discrimination looks like. We were able

44:35

to get 82 of these disciplinary

44:38

cases in response to public records

44:40

requests and found behavior

44:42

that ranged from bad language like

44:44

slurs to unwanted texting. What

44:47

we found is that discrimination or

44:49

discriminatory behavior actually rarely results in

44:52

firing, even when it's pretty

44:54

egregious. For example, one man

44:56

had a number of incidents in

44:58

which he touched female colleagues inappropriately

45:00

without consent, but it looks like he

45:02

just got a pay cut. Another

45:05

officer told a female guard who'd filed

45:07

a complaint about a colleague that the

45:09

action would, quote, follow you throughout your

45:11

career. So you can

45:13

see this culture isn't just about bad

45:16

words. There's a real threat of physical

45:18

and psychological danger that's present. It's what

45:20

enforces the culture of silence among officers

45:22

who work in these prisons. So

45:25

those 82 cases are actually just the

45:27

tip of the iceberg. The

45:32

misconduct you uncovered went beyond Valentino's

45:35

unit at New Folsom. Tell

45:37

me a bit about what you uncovered

45:39

about this prison and the California Department

45:42

of Corrections just in general. So

45:44

this whole podcast started because of

45:47

a new law enforcement transparency law

45:49

in California that opened up police

45:51

internal affairs files, as well as

45:53

correctional officer disciplinary records. We've

45:56

been pursuing these files across the state,

45:58

including from CDC. because they're

46:00

actually the largest employer of peace officers

46:03

in the state. In 2022, we had

46:05

to sue them because they were disclosing

46:07

these cases so slowly, but

46:09

over the past few years, we have

46:11

been able to obtain hundreds of these

46:14

records, including interrogation tapes and settlement agreements.

46:17

And what we've been able to do is build

46:19

up a picture of what use of force looks

46:21

like in prisons across the state. One

46:25

of the things that just really surprised

46:27

us was how many of these really

46:29

troubling incidents happened at New Folsom. Officers

46:32

there were using serious force, so that

46:34

means injuring or shooting at people three

46:37

times more than any other prison in the

46:40

state. Overall use of

46:42

force numbers were also very high. Our

46:44

final analysis going back to 2009 found that New

46:47

Folsom rates were 40% higher than any

46:50

other prison. Finally, we

46:53

found another thing that really stood

46:55

out. The rate that officers

46:57

are using force overall across the

46:59

prison system has been going up,

47:02

not down. So California

47:04

has been touted as one of

47:06

the most progressive, if not the

47:08

most progressive, in terms of incarceration

47:10

issues in the country. And the

47:12

state has been implementing lots of

47:15

prison reforms. Does this

47:17

mean those efforts aren't working? Well,

47:19

California has recently adopted what it

47:21

calls the California model, which is

47:24

fashioned off of the way Norway

47:26

treats prisoners with a real focus

47:28

on rehabilitation and humane treatment in

47:30

prisons. So far there are

47:33

three prisons where it's being tested out. New

47:35

Folsom is not one of them. But

47:37

even at New Folsom, there are

47:39

new reforms that CDCR says should

47:41

make an impact, including implementing body

47:43

cams for officers and a new

47:45

process for reviewing complaints against officers

47:47

that's supposed to be less biased

47:49

and more fair. Now,

47:51

we have already heard about some issues

47:54

with these new reforms, including footage not

47:56

being saved and complaints

47:58

being misclassified. But

48:00

some incarcerated people and officers also say

48:02

that body cams really do make a

48:04

difference. But I

48:07

think what this story shows more

48:09

broadly is that so far there's

48:11

still a real disconnect between the

48:13

high-level policies that are being enacted

48:15

and the reality of what happens

48:17

inside prison walls, including this

48:19

incredibly persistent culture of silence that

48:21

keeps misconduct hidden and is very

48:23

detrimental to the mental health of

48:25

the people who live and work

48:27

inside our prisons. So

48:33

how are Val Senior and

48:35

Valentino's wife Mimi, especially since

48:37

the series came out? Well,

48:40

Mimi is never going to be the same. She

48:42

was only married to Valentino for a few

48:44

weeks when he died and she suffered a

48:46

terrible loss and she's going

48:48

back to school, she's working,

48:50

she's going through the motions of her

48:52

life and she's still trying to make

48:55

her way through it. For Val

48:57

Senior, this process has kept him

48:59

in this state of deep grief and

49:01

anger that has been difficult for him

49:03

to cope with. But he just

49:05

told us recently that doing the

49:07

podcast helped him get closure on

49:10

some things. You know, he

49:12

told me once early on that he feared

49:14

that if he stopped feeling grief for his

49:16

son, that it would be like he

49:18

was turning his back on his son and he would lose

49:20

him again. Like, not feeling

49:22

the grief was a betrayal. But

49:25

now that he's done something, he's fought

49:27

to share his son's story, he

49:29

feels like he can let some of that go now. Suki

49:33

and Julie, thank you so much for bringing us

49:35

this story. Thank you, Al. Thank

49:38

you so much for sharing it. You

49:41

can listen to the On Our Watch

49:43

series at kqed.org or wherever you get

49:45

your podcasts. Throughout it,

49:47

Suki and Julie find another whistleblower

49:50

who helps Val Senior with his

49:52

investigation. They also discover

49:54

a larger pattern of violence inside the

49:56

prison and find out what happened to

49:58

the officers who harassed him. Rast Valentino.

50:04

Our lead producer for this week's show

50:07

is our production manager and my brother

50:09

from another mother, Steven Rascone. He was

50:11

a part of the On Our Watch

50:14

production team which also includes Chris

50:16

Agusa, Jen Chi and Tarek Fuda and

50:18

Victoria Malleon. UC Berkeley's

50:20

investigative reporting program provided support and

50:23

research in data analysis. Denny Casas

50:25

edited the show. Nikki Frick is

50:28

our fact checker. Victoria Baranetsky is

50:30

our general counsel. Our production manager

50:32

is Zulema Cobb, score and sound

50:35

designed by the dynamic duo J-Breezy,

50:37

Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando Mamayo

50:40

Arruda. Additional music from

50:42

Romteen Arably, Audio Network

50:44

and APM Music. Our

50:46

CEO is Robert Rosenthal. Our COO is

50:49

Maria Feldman. Our interim executive

50:51

producers are Taki Telenides and Brup

50:53

Myers. Our theme music is by

50:55

Camarado, Lightning. Support for Reveals provided

50:57

by the Reva and David Logan

50:59

Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the John

51:01

D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,

51:03

the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the

51:06

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Park

51:08

Foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Reveal

51:11

is a co-production of the Center for

51:13

Investigative Reporting and PRX. I'm

51:15

Al Letzen and remember there is always

51:17

more to the story. From

51:37

PRX.