By Elizabeth Meyer
The Hawk Eye, Burlington, Iowa
BURLINGTON, Iowa — Two men already serving lengthy prison terms were sentenced to additional time behind bars Tuesday in the December assault on two Des Moines County correctional officers.
Earl Booth-Harris, 25, and Bobby Joe Morris, 26, plead guilty in separate hearings last week to willful injury and assault of a correctional officer.
Willful injury, a class C felony, carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and assault of a correctional officer, an aggravated misdemeanor, requires at least two years in prison.
Senior District Judge William Dowell determined both men would serve the two sentences consecutively, for a total of 12 years, in addition to other felony convictions they’re serving in prison.
Booth-Harris, of Chicago, currently is serving a mandatory life in prison sentence on a murder conviction, in addition to numerous felony charges in Illinois.
Once he has served his sentence at Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois, he will come back to serve his sentence for murder at Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.
Booth-Harris was convicted in November 2017 for the murder of Deonte “Tae Tae” Carter on South Hill in February 2015. The dispute between the two men was said to be about a pair of tennis shoes.
Morris, of Burlington, currently is serving a 25-year sentence for a series of home invasion robberies involving Hispanics who worked at the Iowa Fertilizer Co. plant in Wever while it was under construction.
Morris is eligible for parole on that sentence after 10 years in prison at ISP.
Authorities have said Morris did not take part in the initial assault of correctional officer Dakota Day, but obstructed his colleague Darlene Fox when she attempted to enter the maximum security area to apprehend Booth-Harris and Jorge Sanders-Galvez, who pled guilty to the assaults Tuesday.
Day entered the maximum security unit on Dec. 10, 2017 to investigate “hooch” being made in one of the men’s cells, court records state.
Day underwent surgery for multiple injuries, including fractured facial bones. He has not returned to work at the jail.
Fox sustained a laceration to the back of her head, but has since returned to work.
©2018 The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa)