Counselor convicted of assaulting teen at juvenile hall
SAN JOSE >> A Santa Clara County counselor has been found guilty of assault after he repeatedly punched a teen while breaking up a fight at juvenile hall last year, according to a jury verdict reached Wednesday.
Robert Joseph Medellin, 47, of Tracy was charged last fall with assault under color of authority following an investigation into an April 14, 2021, encounter at the youth custody facility on Guadalupe Parkway in San Jose. The jury deliberated for one day before handing down its judgment.
Medellin remains out of custody pending his Aug. 19 sentencing. He faces a minimum sentence of probation, up to a maximum three-year prison term.
“This person's job was to protect these youths when, instead, he beat a youth in his care — our job was to prosecute him,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement Thursday. “He should have done his job. We did ours.”
According to Sheriff's Office investigators and prosecutors, Medellin was working as a senior juvenile probation counselor at the facility when two teens he was supervising attacked a third teen using a payphone in a common area. The fight spilled into a hallway; as Medellin approached, one of the teens — identified in court records as Gabriel Doe — threw a punch at the counselor and made “glancing contact” with Medellin's arm.
Medellin then reportedly grabbed Gabriel and threw him to the ground, while the other two teens continued fighting. From there, prosecutors cited video surveillance footage in asserting that Medellin proceeded to punch Gabriel 11 times in the head and once in the body as the teen “was prone on the ground on his stomach and defensively covering his head with his arms.”
Then, in an allegation disputed by his attorney at trial, Medellin lifted Gabriel's head off the ground and slammed it into the concrete floor, inflicting a deep bruise on the teen's forehead.
Medellin's attorney, Joe Wall, said at the time his client was charged that Medellin “sprang to the defense of a kid who was sitting unsuspectingly in a chair talking on the phone when viciously attacked by two rival gang members,” and that the force he used “was reasonably necessary to prevent further assault and to eliminate the danger posed to the victim, Robert's fellow counselors and himself.”
Additionally, Wall argued to jurors that the 17-year-old's physical stature at 6-foot-1 and 210 pounds, and the crime for which he later was convicted — an assault that left a man in a vegetative state — were mitigating factors in Medellin's response.
Wall did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky, who prosecuted the case, said after the verdict that jurors correctly interpreted the evidence presented to them.
“The community looked at the facts, and judged it was excessive, it was unacceptable and that it was a crime,” he said. “He went too far.”
The county probation department, which employed Medellin since 2000 and put him on administrative leave following his criminal charge, said in a statement that the actions that led to Wednesday's conviction “are contrary to the proba
tion department's commitment to providing safe and exemplary care to those we serve.”
“The probation department has no tolerance for any abuse of power or excessive force against youth by its staff,” the statement reads. “While this incident was entirely unacceptable, it does not reflect the amazing and compassionate work our staff do every day with youth and adults in custody and in the community.”