Report Of Mistreatment, Attempted Cover-Up At Denver Jail

<p>(Courtesy Denver Sheriff's Department)</p>
<p>Inmates in the custody of a Denver deputy.</p>

A man fired as an internal investigator at Denver's troubled jail says he was ordered to make sure no one else saw a videotape of deputies walking a handcuffed, naked inmate through a hospital.

Denver television station KCNC quotes the investigator, Brent Miller, as saying Capt. Paul Ortega, who leads the Sheriff Department's internal affairs bureau, told him not to upload the video to a system that would have allowed others to see it. He says Ortega then told him interim Sheriff Elias Diggins had ordered the mistreatment covered up. Miller says he refused and was fired the next day.

Diggins refused to comment and Ortega did not respond to KCNC requests for comment.

The department has been plagued by accusations for years of inmate abuse and mistreatment.