By Rich McKay
(Reuters) – A New York grand jury charged two prison guards with second-degree murder and eight others with related crimes, in the beating death of an inmate last month at a prison in Central New York, according to court papers unsealed on Wednesday.
The 11-count Oneida County grand jury indictment says that the inmate, Messiah Nantwi, 22, of New York City, died on March 1, after he was beaten by the guards with their “fists, batons and boots,” at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York, near Utica.
Nantwi’s death is the second in the New York corrections system in four months in which guards have been charged with fatally beating an inmate. In the other case, six guards had been charged with second-degree murder at the nearby Marcy Correctional Facility in the death of Robert Brooks, 43, of Greece, New York, media accounts say.
The Mid-State prison was one of the state correctional facilities where guards walked off the job on February 17 in a wildcat strike over working conditions. The action forced the governor to send National Guard troops in to help maintain operations.
In the Nantwi case, the inmate was unarmed and had his hands raised, offering no resistance when prison guards handcuffed him and then beat him, the indictment says. After the beating started, Nantwi did bite a guard’s hand, court papers say.
Prison guards Jonah Levi and Caleb Blair were charged with second-degree murder, the indictment says.
NBC reported that lawyers for the two men entered not guilty pleas at an indictment hearing on Wednesday.
Media accounts say that Levi had resigned shortly after the incident and Blair was suspended without pay along with 11 other guards being investigated.
Neither man was listed as in custody at the Oneida County jail on Wednesday and a county sheriff’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to Reuters seeking comment.
A spokesperson for Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who was the special prosecutor in the case, was not immediately available for comment.
Levi, Blair and three others were also charged with manslaughter in the first degree and gang assault. Two more were charged with manslaughter in the second degree. Eight of the guards total were charged with trying to cover up the assault.
Nantwi was serving a five-year sentence for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, court papers say.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frank McGurty and Aurora Ellis)
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