By Carol Robinson
al.com
WALKER COUNTY, Ala. — Six more Walker County jail employees have been indicted on federal charges in connection with the 2023 death of Tony Mitchell, and alleged assaults on five other inmates.
The six count indictment, unsealed Monday, accuses the jail employees of a range of crimes from deprivation of rights to conspiracy against rights to obstruction of justice.
Those indicted are jail Capt. Arcelia Tidwell and correctional officers Dayton Layne Wakefield, Robert Morgan Madison, Daniel Eugene Vickery, Richard Douglas Holtzman and Jacob Dlee Edwards.
The alleged crimes took place from Sept. 1, 2022, through Feb. 7, 2023, at the two-story jail which houses roughly 250 detainees.
The allegations against the jailers include using one inmate as an “enforcer” in his jail dorm.
He was paid by way of “free-world” food and a letter praising him as a model inmate even though he beat up another inmate, which the indictment states was encouraged by the jailer.
In the Mitchell case, the jailers are accused of failing to provide him with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, sanitation and medical and mental health care.
Sheriff Nick Smith did not immediately comment on the new indictments.
Five other indictments are believed to have been issued against jail medical workers but those documents have not yet been unsealed.
More than a dozen jail employees or medical workers have already been indicted, and some have pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty, on federal charges of violating Mitchell’s rights.
Mitchell was arrested Jan. 12, 2023, during a mental health welfare check at his home. Authorities said he fired a gun while deputies were on his property.
Deputies responded that Thursday afternoon to Lost Creek Road near Carbon Hill on a welfare check after family members of Mitchell feared he could harm himself or someone else.
Mitchell, authorities said, was compliant, obeyed commands, and posed no threat of harm to the officers, himself or anyone else other than to continue to “mutter” his delusional comments.
At one point, according to previous plea agreements, Mitchell “stiffened momentarily” but did not pull away or make any aggressive moves toward law enforcement.
Despite his compliance, records state, deputies threw Mitchell to the ground and kicked him with boots in the genitals.
Former Deputy Carl Carpenter has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of deprivation of rights. Former Deputy Matt Handley is also charged with civil rights violations and lying to a grand jury.
Mitchell died two weeks after his arrest.
Subsequent court documents have detailed the horrific conditions of his time in the jail and death.
It was initially claimed Mitchell was placed in a freezer at the jail. It was later determined that Mitchell was put in a “notoriously cold” cell with no sink, toilet, or running water.
The county coroner’s death certificate listed Mitchell’s manner of death as homicide and listed the causes as hypothermia and sepsis “resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”
His core body temperature was 72 degrees.
In addition to Mitchell’s case, the indictment alleges wrongdoing by the jailers over a five-month period involving multiple other inmates.
During that time frame, according to the indictment, Tidwell, Holtzman, and other co-conspirators used a 43-year-old inmate who was awaiting sentencing as an “enforcer” in the jail, paying him “free-world” food to do so.
As an enforcer, records state, the 43-year-old inmate assaulted an 18-year-old inmate.
Tidwell and Holtzman also are accused of providing a letter to the sentencing court falsely attesting to the 43-year-old inmate’s “peaceful” character, including falsely asserting that he had shown “zero signs of aggression and has been a model inmate,” despite the attack on the teen detainee.
On Nov. 17, 2022, a 32-year-old pre-trial detainee at the jail escaped when an outside door was left open.
The inmate was captured a few hours later by sheriff’s deputies and returned to jail.
Holtzman and Vickery, a jail supervisor, are accused of assaulting that detainee, causing him to bleed from his face and covering part of another co-conspirator’s pants with the victim’s blood.
Tidwell, the indictment states, praised those who assaulted the inmate and encouraged similar conduct in the future from correctional officers to punish detainees.
On Jan. 9, 2023, a 38-year-old pre-trial detainee was being held in a medical unit where he awaited medical attention for injuries that he had suffered earlier in the day.
Holtzman is accused of assaulting that inmate, fracturing bones in his head and covering parts of the cell and medical unit floor with the victim’s blood.
Wakefield is accused in a Jan.12, 2023 assault on a 32-year-old pre-trial detainee, allegedly punching the inmate and causing him to bleed from his face.
All six of the jailers are charged with deprivation of rights and conspiracy against rights.
Tidwell and Holtzman are charged with obstruction of justice.
The indictment states they did “corruptly influence, obstruct, and impede, and endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice” by submitting a letter to a judge that contained false assertations that the 43-year-old “enforcer” inmate had showed zero signs of aggress and had been a model inmate when he had assaulted at least one other inmate.
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