“I’m extremely remorseful, your honor. I apologize,” Pacheco said when Shubb asked if he had anything to say.
On Sept. 15, 2016, Pacheco was escorting Price to a new cell. Price had been sentenced on Feb. 27, 2012, to almost 24 years for making a terrorist threat, and for possession of a firearm and ammunition.
According to prison investigators, Price told Pacheco he didn’t want to move to a new building with a new cellmate, but submitted to being handcuffed behind his back. As Price neared the exit of the building, he stopped walking and straightened his torso, according to a joint investigation of the FBI and CDCR.
Pacheco reached in front of Price’s body and swiped his legs out from under him. Price landed face-first.
Ashley Marie Aurich, another escorting officer, sounded an alarm for help.
Two days later, Price died of a pulmonary embolism at the UC Davis Medical Center where he’d been brought for treatment, according to the Sacramento County Coroner’s office. The coroner classified Price’s death as a homicide.
After Price was sent to the hospital, Pacheco sent a text to one of his contacts, according to the investigation.
“I kinda hurt an inmate dumping him,” he wrote.
New Folsom prison officials found that Pacheco lied about the incident and got at least five other officers to conspire to cover it up.
KQED obtained copies of the officers’ misconduct records through a public records request. The records show that Pacheco falsified a report to create a justification for the assault. Pacheco reported that Price “spun to his left and lunged forward breaking free of my escort.”
He also omitted the presence of another officer, Arturo Luna, who witnessed the incident, apparently afraid that Luna would tell the truth, according to investigators.
Sgt. Brenda Villa, Pacheco’s supervisor, helped bolster Pacheco’s false claims by also omitting the presence of Luna from her report. Villa instructed Aurich to do the same. Luna never filed a report and was subsequently fired.
CDCR fired Pacheco for engaging in a “code of silence,” and violating department policies on ethics, honesty in investigations, and use of force, according to a June 18, 2018, termination notice.
“You have failed to display the integrity and trust expected of an individual in the field of law enforcement,” the document read.
CDCR also fired Villa, Aurich and three other officers, and referred the case for criminal prosecution. The Sacramento County District Attorney declined the case in 2017.
“Based on the totality of the circumstances presented in the investigation, there was insufficient evidence to file state homicide charges and sustain a conviction of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Assistant District Attorney Mike Blazina said in an email to KQED Monday.
Federal prosecutors came to a different conclusion, indicting Pacheco on Nov. 19, 2020. During its investigation, the FBI uncovered a second instance in which Pacheco used excessive force against another man incarcerated at New Folsom and falsified the incident report: On May 19, 2016, Pacheco pepper-sprayed an incarcerated man in the face at close range. He claimed he did that because the man was threatening to kill himself.
Pacheco pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the constitutional rights of men incarcerated at New Folsom and two counts of falsifying records in a federal investigation. The charges carried a maximum sentence of 60 years. But as part of a plea deal, prosecutors sought a sentence of 151 months.
Pacheco’s attorney David Fischer argued for 10 years.
“This is a very severe sentence for someone who served our country,” Fischer told the judge.
Pacheco served in the U.S. Army and the California National Guard. He was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Fisher said his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder that was undiagnosed until 2019, arguing the PTSD may have contributed to his criminal conduct against Price and the other incarcerated man he pepper-sprayed.
But prosecutors painted a different picture of the former officer.
“He was trained to use physical force to protect himself and to ensure the safety of others. Instead of protecting others, Pacheco used violence because he thought it was ‘fucken funny,’” prosecutors wrote, citing the former officer’s text messages in court papers.
Michael Anderson, assistant U.S. attorney, told Judge Shubb that Pacheco’s crimes had serious consequences.
“A man died who shouldn’t have died,” he said.
Aurich also pleaded guilty to a single federal charge of falsifying records. As part of a plea agreement, Aurich admitted that she had falsely reported that Price “stopped moving forward, spun to his left and lunged forward.” She is scheduled to be sentenced December 12.
Some of Pacheco’s supporters wept and hugged after his sentencing. One man called Price’s nephew “a punk b—.”
Price’s family left the court through a door separate from Pacheco’s supporters.
The family recently filed a civil lawsuit against Pacheco, Aurich and Jeff Lynch, the New Folsom warden, for compensatory and punitive damages. The complaint filed in September alleges prison officials kept secret the true circumstances of the incident that led to Price’s death, and never informed the family about the attempt to cover up the incident by officers.
New Folsom has been under increased scrutiny since 2021 when a member of an elite group of officers that investigates staff misconduct and the deaths of incarcerated people reported serious misconduct within the unit and among frontline staff.
Through reporting, KQED learned that Sgt. Kevin Steele, a senior officer in the Investigative Service Unit, reported the allegations directly to Lynch on Jan. 4, 2021, and to the head of corrections, Kathleen Allison, on Feb. 8, 2021, alleging widespread corruption at the prison. Steele committed suicide six months later, according to a coroner’s report.
On the street after the sentencing, Tucker said he thought Pacheco’s sentence was light, but expressed hope that it would deter other guards from abusing their position.
“Sometimes a badge goes to an officer’s head,” he said. “The power goes to a lot of people’s heads who can’t handle it.”
Correction, Oct. 19: In the original version of this story, the first name of Ronnie Price’s nephew was misspelled. It’s “Takis” — not “Tavis” — Tucker.
KQED’s Sukey Lewis and Steven Rascon contributed reporting to this story.
