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Victim testifies in trial of suspended Clayton County sheriff
For the first time, jurors heard from one of the alleged victims in the trial against suspended Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill. A federal grand jury indicted hill last year on charges that he violated the constitutional rights of detainees inside the jail by strapping them in restraint chairs.
ATLANTA - For the first time, jurors in the federal trial of suspended Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill heard testimony from one of the alleged victims Friday.
A federal grand jury indicted Hill in 2021 on charges that he violated the Constitutional rights of inmates inside the Clayton County Jail by ordering them held in restraint chairs for hours. He is accused of using "unreasonable force" on seven pre-trial detainees.
Deputies from the Clayton County Sheriff's Office arrested Desmond Bailey in February 2020 on drug and weapons charges.
Bailey told jurors that deputies pulled him over and then drove him home where he sat in the back of a patrol car for two or three hours as investigators searched the house. He explained that he talked back and forth with the deputy in the car with him and at one point was even allowed to go use the bathroom.
When Bailey was later transported to the Clayton County Jail, however, he testified that Sheriff Hill ordered corrections officers to put him in a restraint chair. Bailey said the order came after Sheriff Hill tried to ask Bailey about his alleged crimes and he said he was not comfortable discussing the charges without a lawyer present.
"Had you been violent in any way when Sheriff Hill was there?" the prosecution asked Bailey.
"No, sir," he responded.
An artist's sketch from inside a federal courtroom during the trial of suspended Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill on Oct. 12, 2022.
Bailey testified that he was left in the restraint chair for six hours.
"It was horrible," Bailey told the court. "It's not anything that I would wish on anybody [...] it's terrifying."
Bailey said his whole body was numb and that a green medical band became embedded in his skin. A nurse, Bailey testified, had to use tweezers to pull the band out once he was released from the chair.
Photos from a jail video call with Bailey's then-girlfriend a week later depicted deep gashes on both his left and right wrists. The prosecution also showed jurors more recent photos of the scars left behind.
Bailey testified that he had lasting mental effects from his time in the restraint chair, as well. He said he took his daughter to the fair and "freaked out" when he boarded a ride and workers fastened a harness over his shoulders.
Sheriff Hill's defense team tried to cast doubt on not only the source of Bailey's injuries, but his testimony.
"You pled guilty to lying, correct?" defense attorney Marissa Goldberg asked of a 2015 arrest for giving a false name to law enforcement.
"Yes, ma'am," Bailey replied.
Goldberg also pointed out that Bailey had been wearing handcuffs for hours and suggested that they could have been the source of his injuries, not the restraint chair itself.
"That whole time you were wearing those hard, metal handcuffs," Goldberg said.
So far, the prosecution has presented 12 witnesses—most of them law enforcement officers, including former Clayton County jail employees. The trial is scheduled to resume Monday morning.