By Jocelyn Brumbaugh
The Tribune-Democrat
EBENSBURG — One of four men charged in connection with a riot at a juvenile treatment facility in Cresson Township was sentenced to state prison Monday.
Zaire Nelson, 20, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated harassment by a prisoner in July for two incidents in January.
The first incident took place on Jan. 1, 2015, at the Cresson Secure Treatment Unit on Correction Road, police said, when Nelson, two juveniles and Tyrone McDuffie, 20, started a disturbance that resulted in a riot. During the incident, Nelson’s attorney, Arnold Bernard of Pittsburgh, said Nelson reportedly swung at a corrections officer and spit on another.
Police said two staff members received broken noses and another a laceration that required stitches before the assault ended.
On Jan. 21, Nelson was charged for spitting on a correctional officer at the Cambria County Prison.
Bernard described Nelson as “an individual placed in the juvenile system who fell through the cracks.”
After Nelson was first arrested as a juvenile in Philadelphia County, he was housed at a shelter, served time in another juvenile facility and eventually taken to the Cresson unit. It was around this time that Nelson had several review hearings without representation because his attorney didn’t show up, Bernard said.
“I know that Mr. Nelson wasn’t a model citizen while he was at the Cresson treatment unit,”?Bernard said, but called him a victim of the system and asked Judge Norman Krumenacker III for a lesser sentence.
Assistant district attorney Beth Bolton-Penna pointed out that the two incidents happened within days of each other. Krumenacker said he didn’t have the power to correct the lack of attention his juvenile case received in Philadelphia County and could only sentence Nelson on the incidents in front of him.
“Behavior dictates life,”?Krumenacker said before handing down a sentence of one to seven years in state prison for both charges. Nelson will receive credit for the eight months he has served in the Cambria County Prison since his arrest.
In July, McDuffie was sentenced to one to two years in a state prison, with credit for the seven months he served at the Cambria County Prison.