UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — Four prison guards involved in the death of an incarcerated Black man whose brutal beating at an upstate New York prison last year was captured on body-cam videos were each sentenced Friday to prison terms.
The four had pleaded guilty in September, just two weeks before the start of the trial for a group of guards accused in the death of Robert Brooks, who was pummeled while handcuffed at the Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9.
The beating of the restrained 43-year-old man triggered outrage and calls for reform.
Nicholas Anzalone and Anthony Farina, who both had faced a top charge of murder before pleading guilty to a lesser charge of first-degree manslaughter, each received 22-year terms. Two more men charged with second-degree manslaughter also pleaded guilty. Michael Mashaw was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, while David Walters got two years, four months to seven years.
Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault since 2017 and was transferred to Marcy from a nearby lockup on the night he was beaten. The videos show Brooks being struck in the chest with a shoe, lifted by his neck and then dropped.
During the hearing, prosecutors read statements from Brooks' relatives, including his brother, Jared Ricks, who wrote that he hopes the “welcoming committee” shows the four defendants more grace when they arrive in state prison as incarcerated people than they showed his brother, Syracuse.com reported.
The victim's son, Robert Brooks Jr., wrote that watching the video of his father’s fatal beating was like watching a horror movie.
“I pray this case teaches others that they can’t treat incarcerated people like animals,” he wrote.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, the special prosecutor in the case, said the two men were not allowed to read their statements themselves due to objections from all four defense attorneys after Fitzpatrick failed to file the required paperwork.
The first plea in the case came last May, when a guard charged with murder pleaded guilty to manslaughter under a deal with prosecutors. Christopher Walrath, who resigned, was sentenced in August to 15 years in prison.
Another guard pleaded guilty later in May to attempted tampering with physical evidence and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge.
The trial of three other guards charged with murder and first-degree manslaughter concluded last month with a jury convicting David Kingsley on both counts but acquitting the other two, Mathew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer. Kingsley faces a potential life term when he's sentenced, while the last guard, Michael Fisher, is scheduled to stand trial in January on a second-degree manslaughter charge.
Fitzpatrick is also prosecuting guards in the March 1 fatal beating of Messiah Nantwi at another Marcy lockup, the Mid-State Correctional Facility. Eight guards have reached plea deals in the case, while five others are scheduled to stand trial in March, including two who are charged with murder.
Both prisons are about 180 miles (290 kilometers) northwest of New York City.
