Two Downtown Jail Guards Under Ongoing Criminal Investigation Were Recently Disciplined for Assaulting Inmates

In one case, Jorge Troudt tackled a restrained inmate. In another, Gustavo Valdovinos threw a sucker punch.

Courtesy MCSO
By Lucas Manfield

Two of three Multnomah County corrections deputies put on leave in September were recently disciplined for assaulting inmates, WW has learned.

Jorge Troudt tackled a restrained inmate in February 2021. Five months later, Gustavo Valdovinos gut-punched a restrained inmate who had spit in his face.

In both cases, the captain running Multnomah County Detention Center, the downtown jail where Troudt and Valdvinos worked, registered concerns about the two deputies’ behavior.

In documentation of the incidents provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to WW, Capt. Jeffrey Wheeler wrote that Troudt’s “uncontrolled takedown” of the inmate had a “high potential for injury.” In the case of Valdovino, “striking an inmate in the abdomen” was neither “reasonable or justifiable,” Wheeler wrote.

Both complaints resulted in disciplinary action, according to sheriff’s spokesman Chris Liedle. It does not appear the incidents were related to the ongoing criminal investigation, first reported by WW, that resulted in Valdovinos, Troudt and a third deputy, Mirzet Sacirovic, being put on paid administrative leave in September.

The office is declining to provide additional information about that investigation. But a statement given to WW by the sheriff’s office suggests the two assaults were not the reason for the criminal probe.

“Disclosure of these materials would jeopardize [the investigations’] integrity and potentially undermine possible prosecution of any crimes that could ultimately be charged,” Liedle wrote to WW.

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