UTICA, N.Y. (AP) - Ten New York prison guards were charged Wednesday in connection with the fatal beating of a 22-year-old inmate last month - including two charged with murder. It's the second time a group of correctional officers in the state was indicted for a death behind bars this year.
The indictment says several guards severely beat Messiah Nantwi, a prisoner at the Mid-State Correctional Facility, who was hospitalized died on March 1 "due to massive head trauma and numerous other injuries to his body." Three guards are also accused of orchestrating an effort to falsely claim that Nantwi had a makeshift knife in his room.
Nantwi´s death came several months after Robert Brooks was fatally beaten at the Marcy Correctional Facility, just across the street from the Mid-State prison. Six guards have pleaded not guilty to murder charges in Brooks´ death and other prison employees have also been charged.
The Utica-area facility was one of many state prisons that was struggling to function during a three-week wildcat strike by guards. Correctional officers who were upset over working conditions began illegally walking off the job Feb. 17 at many state prisons, forcing the governor to send National Guard troops in to maintain operations. Incarcerated people and their advocates complained that services and conditions deteriorated during the walkout.
Lawyers for the two guards charged with second-degree murder, Jonah Levi and Caleb Blair, entered not guilty pleas at an indictment hearing Wednesday.
They were part of an emergency response team called to Nantwi´s room to help National Guard members with an "unknown issue." His hands were raised when the guards first entered but he protested being handcuffed for no apparent reason and grabbed another guard´s vest, the indictment says. Several guards immediately began raining down blows on his head and body with their boots, the document says, and the attack intensified when Nantwi bit Blair and another guard Thomas Eck on their hands.
Nantwi became unresponsive and guards transported him out of the room and headed for the infirmary. Nantwi was assaulted a second time in a stairwell and was "dumped in a holding cell at the infirmary and further assaulted" by Blair, the indictment says. The beatings and lack of urgency about getting him medical attention "demonstrated depraved indifference" for Nantwi's life.
Gov. Kathy Hochul called it a "horrific crime" in announcing the indictments Tuesday.
"The tragic death of Mr. Nantwi at the hands of correction officers who are responsible for protecting the incarcerated population is deeply, deeply disturbing," Hochul said in a brief video message.
In misdemeanor conspiracy and evidence tampering charges, correctional guard Eck and Sgts. David Ferrone and Frank Chandler Jr. are accused of falsely claiming there was a knife in the prison cell. Chandler ordered a corrections officer to retrieve a weapon that had been confiscated earlier that day in an incident not involving Nantwi. At Chandler´s asking, Eck "volunteered" to lie about the weapon and later told authorities he found it on the floor in Nantwi´s room.
Levi, Blair and three other guards were also charged with first-degree manslaughter.
The attorney general´s office has recused itself in Nantwi´s case, citing its representation of several correctional officers in civil lawsuits. A special prosecutor was appointed, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who is also the prosecutor in Brooks´ death.
Nantwi entered the state prison system last May and had been serving a five-year sentence for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon related to an exchange of gunfire with police officers in 2021. At the time he was shot multiple times, while the officers were uninjured.
Prosecutors in Manhattan say Nantwi shot and killed Jaylen Duncan, 19, on a Harlem street in April 2023. The following evening, they say, he shot and killed Brandon Brunson, 36, at a Harlem smoke shop after an argument.
Collins contributed from Hartford, Connecticut.