Prison Guards Behind Bars Now

SAN FRANCISCO —  Two former Pelican Bay State Prison guards were sentenced Thursday to federal prison terms for conspiracy to violate the civil rights of inmates.

Edward Michael Powers was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and three years of supervised release, and was fined $25,000. Jose Ramon Garcia was sentenced to six years and four months in federal prison and three years of supervised release.

Powers and Garcia were sentenced for conduct from 1992 to 1996, when they solicited inmates to attack child molesters, sex offenders and other inmates that the two guards disliked.

In two cases, prosecutors said, Powers and Garcia attacked inmates themselves.

Their convictions were based on testimony from inmates or former inmates.

One former inmate testified that, in one instance, Powers offered to pay a half-ounce of heroin and a half-ounce of methamphetamine for the stabbing of a prisoner and even supplied a knife for the attack.

Garcia also had been convicted in a separate state trial on a charge of conspiracy to assault inmates and supplying alcohol in the prison. He served nearly four years in state prison on that conviction.

Pelican Bay, in Crescent City, Calif., near the Oregon state line, is home to the state’s most hardened criminals, most of whom are serving lengthy terms for violent crimes.