OAKLAND — A sheriff’s deputy accused of telling six inmates to “take care of” of another inmate and make it look like he slipped in the shower will be tried on two felony assault counts, a judge decided Friday.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Rogers found there was enough evidence to hold Joseph Robert Bailey, 29, of Tracy, accountable for the felony charges. He was arrested in January for assault by a public officer and assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury for allegedly facilitating an inmate attack in Oct. 24, 2017 at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

One former inmate, a 26-year-old man, became emotional as he testified Friday when prosecutor Tim Wagstaffe showed him photos of the inmate beaten up. He testified that Bailey told the entire upper D-Pod, in Housing Unit 32, to beat up this newcomer.

He said Bailey made it clear that he “wanted to see blood.”

“It felt like we had immunity,” the 26-year-old man said.

Bailey allegedly moved an inmate from an isolated cell of the Santa Rita Jail to upper D-Pod, and told other inmates that he was a member of a rival gang. He also told the six men to “take care of him and make it look like he fell in the shower,” according to court documents.

The inmate was attacked and had a swollen eye, broken nose, a laceration to his bottom lip and cuts above his left eye and on his forehead. He had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

“He gave us the green light to mess up this individual,” another former inmate, a 43-year-old man, testified.

A fellow deputy, Brad Willis, also testified Friday, confirming that it was Bailey who moved the victim inmate from the solitary cell to upper D-pod. The inmate had been giving the deputies trouble and refused to submit to a strip search. Willis said the inmate told them something to the effect that he would see one of them on the street.

When Willis went to check on the victim inmate after he was alerted of the attack, he did not recognize him at first because of all the swelling, cuts and blood.

“I saw blood on the ground,” he said.

The 26-year-old inmate who testified said he felt as if everyone in the pod, which houses upward of 20 men, “took a swing at him.”

Willis said Bailey directly admitted to him that he had told the inmates to beat him up and “make it look like he fell in the shower.” He testified that Bailey said he did not want them to have injured him so severely.

Willis described Bailey’s demeanor when he confessed as “kind of jokingly,” as though it wasn’t a big deal to him.

During the investigation by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Bailey denied he ordered the attack.

Bailey has been with the sheriff’s office since Jan. 5, 2015. He was placed on leave during the investigation of the attack.

Related Articles East Bay deputy who told inmates to ‘take care of’ fellow jailer charged with assault

East Bay deputy accused of assault appears before judge, not media Bailey is the fifth deputy to be arrested for alleged mistreatment of inmates at Santa Rita Jail in the last year. Four other deputies were arrested in August 2017 on unrelated charges stemming from a separate investigation. The four sworn deputies are alleged to have facilitated and allowed an inmate to throw bodily fluids, including feces and urine, onto other inmates housed in a maximum security unit of the jail. The investigation focused on incidents at Santa Rita between the summer and fall of 2016. The four are due in court in the next couple of months for their preliminary hearings.

In May, two Santa Clara County deputies were acquitted of beating an inmate. In July 2017, a Santa Clara County County jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquitting a former guard of kicking an inmate in the head in 2013. The inmate died from the injury.

But in January of this year, three Santa Clara County jail guards, Matt Farris, Jereh Lubrin and Rafael Rodriguez, were sentenced to 15 years to life after being convicted of second-degree murder for the beating death of inmate Michael Tyree in 2015.

Bailey will next appear in court later this month.