Posted on Mon, Jan. 21, 2008

-- "If you follow the rules, you'll be all right."

Preston Wills said that advice from his father, a longtime police officer, stuck with him as he pursued a law enforcement career through a corrections job at the Harrison County Adult Detention Center.

"I followed the rules and look where it got me," said Wills, the 26-year-old father of a toddler.

He turned himself in last Monday at a federal prison in Minnesota. Wills must serve 3½ years on a guilty plea to conspiring to deprive the rights of county jail inmates. He's among 10 ex-jailers sentenced in November in a federal investigation that prosecutors have said isn't over.

Wills shared frustrations over problems at the jail in an exclusive interview as he set his affairs in order before reporting to prison. He also shared disappointment over his foiled dream of becoming a patrol officer and concerns for his safety.

The criminal case of civil rights violations began after inmate Jessie Lee Williams Jr. was fatally beaten by officers in the county jail booking room on Feb. 4, 2006.

Wills wasn't present when the beating occurred, though federal trial attorneys have said a culture of abuse existed at the jail for at least five years and no one spoke up to stop it.

Wills, a booking officer for 4½ years, worked at the jail from November 2002 through May 2006. He was accepted for academy training for patrol in September 2005, but that plan was halted after Hurricane Katrina a month earlier.

"I wanted out of there," he said. "I wanted to be on patrol. My lifelong dream was to be a hero, to put bad guys in jail and protect others."

Wills blames jail officials under former Sheriff George H. Payne Jr. for most of the problems that escalated with overcrowding and understaffing. Wills said training was inadequate and policies and procedures conflicted with the sheriff's general orders.

"Supervisors would pick and choose which orders they wanted you to follow," said Wills. "Many flat-out-wrong incidents that were supposedly investigated by Internal Affairs were said to be unfounded. It wasn't what you know but who you know that mattered.

"There's people still working out there that are 10 times worse than they've made some of us out to be."

Wills said it wasn't uncommon to have only seven to nine officers on duty to monitor 1,000 inmates or only a couple of booking officers to handle as many as 60 incoming detainees.

The warden hired after criminal accusations were made public began making changes. The restraint chair was banned. A new policy threatens termination for witnessing misconduct and failing to report it.

Wills said he feels betrayed by federal prosecutors and the Department of Justice, which has monitored jail conditions since 1995.

"When I was called in, I asked if I was a suspect. They said 'no,' so I answered all their questions. I cooperated. I made copies of every report and narrative I ever wrote and turned it over to them."

"Then they threatened to put me in prison for many years if I didn't plead guilty to whatever they said I did. I've got a child. I decided to do it and get it over with."

The reading of his plea agreement in court listed no specific incident of inmate abuse.

Ex-jailer Regina Rhodes, the first to accept a plea bargain, helped former Sgt. Ryan Teel assault Jessie Williams in an unprovoked attack. Surveillance tapes showed the assault continued while Williams was cuffed and strapped in a restraint chair.

"What Ryan Teel and Regina Rhodes did to Jessie Williams was clear-cut wrong, and some of the others, too. But I never initiated a physical altercation with an inmate," Wills said.

"If somebody wanted to fight me, I'd tell him, 'you've picked the right guy.' Some of them would come in the booking room drunk or drugged up and wanting to fight. That's what made booking so different from the cell blocks."

In November, U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. sentenced Teel to two life terms plus 20 years. He sentenced Rhodes to 18 months and gave Thompson 48 months. The judge gave Wills 41 months, the second longest term among those with plea bargains.

Federal prosecutors John Cotton Richmond and Lisa Krigsten have said that officers who witnessed excessive or unjustified force or other violations of civil rights and failed to report it are just as guilty.

Wills said he was surprised when federal prosecutors told him that some common practices in the jail were violations of civil rights, including acts that intimidate, threaten or oppress.

"How am I supposed to know I'm doing wrong unless somebody comes and tells me it's wrong?" he asked. "I'm going to take it like a man, but I don't believe I deserve this."

At sentencing, prosecutors said Wills wasn't a viable witness. They did not call him to testify at the trial of Teel and former Capt. Rick Gaston last August.

Wills said Teel was "out of control," but said he enjoyed working for Gaston, who was found not guilty. Gaston was in charge of booking.

U.S. Probation and Parole officers and prosecutors disagreed on the amount of leniency Wills should receive. Prosecutors wanted less leniency for Wills. He received the second longest prison term of those with plea bargains, including some who admitted they broke an inmate's jaw or knocked out an inmate's tooth.

"The prosecutors didn't like it that I went on CNN," Wills said of his televised interview about the jail for the "Anderson Cooper 360" program.

"I'm not a corrupt cop," Wills said. "I just wouldn't say what the government wanted me to say."

Wills was on the verge of changing his plea at sentencing, wanting to take his chances with a jury. But once Wills signed a plea agreement, deciding to go to trial could have resulted in a stiffer sentence if he was found guilty by a jury, said Attorney David Morrison.

A guilty plea cannot be appealed.

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