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Jury Rules For Deputy Accused In Jail Scuffle

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By TODD RUGER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: September 27, 2008

Rhonda Roeber

A corrections deputy did not use excessive force to subdue an inmate who had her spleen removed after a scuffle in the Sarasota County jail last year, a federal jury ruled this week.

Deputies say they did not strike Rhonda Roeber, but grabbed her wrist and forced her to the ground, then pinned her there with a knee to the back.

Roeber, 52, filed the lawsuit after she went to the hospital for her spleen and called her public defender to say corrections deputies had "roughed me up."

The jury sided with corrections deputy Dominik Makowiecki, who argued he and another deputy were only trying to restrain her.

According to deputy reports, Roeber was in Cell 207A after being arrested on an aggravated battery charge. She was accused of hitting a man in the head with a bottle, but the charge was later dropped.

While in jail, she stuffed the toilet in her cell with toilet paper to make it overflow and was cursing and banging on her cell door, so two corrections deputies entered to restrain her, the reports state.

The deputies wrote they knew Roeber had been drinking alcohol. The 130-pound woman did not respond to their commands to "calm down," "stop resisting" and "get off the bunk."

One deputy wrote that he bent her wrist to the floor and put his knee on her back to keep her on the floor. Another deputy bent her foot at the ankle to keep her from kicking, the reports state.

A jail nurse who examined Roeber after the scuffle did not find that she had any health problems, sheriff's office reports state.

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