Former jailer tells his side

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | 10:34 PM

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Updating a report we brought you Tuesday, a former Harris County detention officer charged with beating two inmates was in court Wednesday morning.

Michael Lagatta tells us Timothy Gough beat him up after a 2007 arrest. Lagatta was handcuffed at the time. His nose was broken and his eye socket was fractured. Wednesday morning, Gough admitted he used force that night, but nothing out of line.

"No excessive force was used," he told us. "It was crowded conditions in the jail. The prisoner came in, I remember it. He was belligerent, but no excessive force was used."

Gough was in court for a routine hearing. No trial date has been set. He resigned the jail job in the middle of the investigation, he says, to continue classes at a local police academy.

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