By Jon Moss
syracuse.com
UTICA, N.Y. — Four state corrections officers pleaded guilty Monday in a Utica courtroom in the fatal beating of an inmate last year at a Central New York prison.
The corrections officers had been scheduled to go on trial in two weeks alongside their co-defendants in the death of Robert L. Brooks, 43, of the Rochester area.
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The four men who pleaded guilty are:
- Nicholas Anzalone . He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He had been indicted for second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.
- Anthony Farina. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He had been indicted for second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter.
- Sgt. Michael Mashaw. He pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. He had been indicted for second-degree manslaughter.
- David Walters. He pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. He had been indicted for second-degree manslaughter. They had faced 25 years to life
Oneida County Court Judge Robert Bauer promised Anzalone and Farina 22 years in state prison in exchange for their guilty pleas. They had faced 25 years to life in prison on the murder charge.
Mashaw and Walters were promised 3 to 9 years in state prison in exchange for their guilty plea.
Four guards rejected plea deals in court Monday: David Kingsley, Nicholas Kieffer, Mathew Galliher and Michael Fisher. These are the charges they face:
- Galliher: second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and second-degree gang assault.
- Kieffer: second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, second-degree gang assault and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.
- Kingsley: second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter.
- Fisher: second-degree manslaughter.
Nine corrections officers and a prison sergeant were charged in the fatal beating of Brooks.
Multiple corrections officers repeatedly punched and kicked Brooks in the groin, abdomen and face on Dec. 9 in the infirmary at Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County. He died hours later at a Utica hospital.
The savage beating — which prosecutors said was the final of three beatings to Brooks — was recorded on video by body cameras worn by four of the prison guards. None had turned on their camera, but 30 minutes of video was passively recorded without audio.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick extended plea deals in late March to each of the corrections officers. He was appointed as a special prosecutor in early January after the state Attorney General’s Office recused itself.
Oneida County grand jurors voted to indict the guards after viewing evidence presented by Fitzpatrick’s office.
Brooks’ death was ruled a homicide by the Onondaga County Medical Examiner‘s Office. The cause of death was “compression of the neck and multiple blunt-impact injuries,” according to the autopsy report.
Brooks’ autopsy showed he suffered extensive bruising, a broken nose bone and bleeding in his genitals and neck.
Brooks arrived at the Marcy prison at about 9 p.m. Dec. 9 . Three guards carried him facedown by his hands and feet to an exam table in the prison infirmary.
Guards soon began punching and hitting Brooks, at one point shoving him up against a window. One guard can be seen in body camera footage putting both hands around Brooks’ neck and yanking him off the exam table.
After the beating, Brooks was seen bloodied and stripped to his underwear.
The Brooks family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court claiming state officials oversee a “dangerously broken” prison system that brutalizes inmates.
Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the Marcy prison in the weeks after the beating and named a new, permanent superintendent for the facility. She also announced a variety of initiatives to improve the larger state prison system.
Hochul has ordered 18 state employees involved in the beating to be fired. Several have resigned.
Several of the corrections officers are defendants in lawsuits alleging other cases of abuse against inmates, including one contending the Marcy prison has a “beat-up squad.”
The union representing corrections officers, the state Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, has denounced the actions of the officers involved in the beating.
Brooks, originally of Greece in Monroe County, was sentenced in 2017 to 12 years in prison on a first-degree assault charge. He was arrested after stabbing his girlfriend multiple times. He had been scheduled for a parole hearing next year.
Brooks had been held in the Mohawk Correctional Facility, records show, but was moved the day of the beating to the Marcy prison. He had been transferred for his “safety,” a state prison system investigator testified, since he had been involved in altercations with other inmates.
The Marcy prison is a medium-security facility located in Oneida County, about seven miles west of Utica.
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