3 Ex-Officers Found Guilty of Beating Man

LOS ANGELES —  Two former Orange County sheriff’s deputies and a former Maywood police officer on Monday were found guilty of beating a Huntington Park man in his jail cell.

Former sheriff’s deputies Ivan Budiselich, 26, and John Rice, 26, and former Maywood officer Michael A. Elliott, 31, were found guilty of one felony count of assault under color of authority and of a misdemeanor count of battery. They were found innocent of felony assault and battery with serious bodily injury.

Assault under color of authority carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

The three men were convicted of the March 23, 1990, beating of Marino D. Martillo, 30, who had been jailed in Maywood on traffic warrants and a bad-check charge.

The auto-parts clerk suffers from blurred vision, hearing loss and dizziness as a result of the attack, according to his doctor and a physician hired by the prosecution.

During the trial before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judith L. Champagne, prosecutors charged that the beating occurred after Budiselich, Rice and Elliott had spent a night of heavy drinking at a bachelor party thrown for another Maywood officer.

All three officers subsequently lost their jobs after departmental investigations into the incident.

Defense attorneys Martin Geragos and Paul DiPasquale contended that Martillo had exaggerated the incident and the extent of his injuries in an attempt to pursue a frivolous lawsuit against the city of Maywood and the defendants.

Neither Geragos nor DiPasquale could be reached for comment Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeffrey D. Oscodar called the verdict “just and fair.”

“The verdict showed the judge believed that Martillo had been beaten, but she had doubts about the extent that he was beaten,” Oscodar said. “We knew that the injuries he sustained would be difficult to prove. . . . I think it’s a reasonable judgment.”

Because the trial was heard before a judge rather than a jury, Oscodar said, he did not believe that the intense scrutiny cast on law enforcement--and on brutality cases in particular--following the controversial Rodney King incident played a role in the ruling.

However, he acknowledged that prosecutors had agreed to a non-jury trial to forgo any unfair advantage that may have been given to the prosecution.

Prosecutors and the defense were to have begun selecting a jury in the case a day after the King video was broadcast.

“We chose not to have a jury trial because it would have been unfair to have anything that happened to (King) influence this case,” Oscodar said.

During the two-week trial, witnesses testified that Budiselich, Rice and Elliott went to the Maywood Jail in a chauffeur-driven limousine after midnight to visit friends and play with a Breathalyzer, an instrument used to determine sobriety.

Hearing that a jail inmate had been involved in a scuffle with another officer, the trio entered the cellblock and mistakenly singled out Martillo.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 30.