Ex-jail workers under federal indictment

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — John and Violet Gould will stand trial in federal court May 23, on charges stemming from the alleged March 22, excessive force case involving James Barber.

John Gould is the former Cibola County Detention Center administrator and his wife, Violet, was a nurse at the facility located just outside Grants in Cibola County.

Barber, 50, who has a long list of former crimes and convictions, was shot several times while in custody at the jail with a less-than-lethal compressed-air riot gun and was injured in the process.

The case became a federal one when it was determined that Barber may have had his civil rights violated during the shooting.

Gould faces similar federal charges stemming from an incident with an inmate while he worked at the Dona Ana Detention Center in Las Cruces. In fact, the charges are so similar that the United States Attorney's Office in Albuquerque combined the two cases into one massive indictment and then included Violet Gould in the same indictment.

The case was supposed to go to trail March 8, but Gould's attorney and his wife's attorney, as well as the US Attorney's Office sought a continuance, said Assistant US Attorney Norman Cairns. Cairns said the judge granted the motion and moved the trail to the new date in May.

Cairns said the last motion to be filed in the case came from Violet Gould. "She filed a motion to sever her case from her husband's case, but there has been no ruling on that yet," Cairns said.

John Gould faces up to 22 years in a federal prison on his charges and Violet Gould faces up to one year in a federal prison. Unlike state prisons, in which inmates facing 22 years can be eligible for parole, because of goodtime, after serving only 11 years, federal prisons have no such provision.

The Goulds came to Cibola County in 2003, when the county jail was still under construction. They came from Las Cruces, where John Gould worked at the Dona Ana Detention Center. The couple rented a home in Milan. After the shooting incident at the Cibola County Detention Center on March 22, 2004, they left Cibola County and returned to Dona Ana County.

The indictment alleges that Gould deprived Barber of his civil rights by assaulting him while Barber was in hand restraints and that he lied to a federal officer about the incident, which, in federal terms, is witness tampering. Because Barber was in restraints the charge is not just assault, but aggravated assault. The indictment alleges that Violet Gould lied to a state police officer about the shooting incident and about Barber's medical treatment, which again is alleged witness tampering.

During an interview, Gould said he did use the gun, but only to subdue Barber, who reportedly was combative in his cell. The compressed air guns fire either a plastic pellet, or a pepper ball designed to incapacitate someone.

Gould said he only used enough pepper balls to subdue Barber; however, in the federal investigation of the incident, it is alleged that the matter turned into pure assault when Gould kept firing the air gun.

The indictment states: "The defendant did assault James Barber, resulting in bodily injury to him, thereby depriving him of the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, which includes the right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by one acting under color of law (a law enforcement officer)."

The indictment alleges that Gould lied in his report about the incident.

In the case stemming from the alleged Las Cruces incident, Gould also reportedly assaulted an inmate, Tampico Verdin, and then lied about the incident.

Cairn said the federal courts set no bond on the Goulds, that both were released from federal custody "with conditions."

An attempt to contact John Gould Thursday about the trial date was not successful.