By Anne Hayes
syracuse.com
UTICA, N.Y. — A former New York state corrections officer convicted of murdering an inmate in a brutal beatdown last year was sentenced Friday.
Oneida County Court Judge Robert Bauer sentenced David Kingsley to the maximum of 25 years to life in state prison.
Kingsley is the only guard found guilty by a jury. Ten guards were charged. Six pleaded guilty and two were acquitted by a jury. The last guard is scheduled to go to trial in January.
A jury found Kingsley guilty this fall of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter in the death of inmate Robert L. Brooks.
Prosecutor Jed Hudson said Kingsley’s refusal to take responsibility and forcing the family to go through the traumas of trial earned him a maximum sentence.
Hudson said Kingsley, who is nearly 300 pounds, can be seen in the video lifting the much smaller Brooks by his neck. Brooks suffered severe injuries to his neck in the fatal beating.
Kingley addressed the Brooks family at the sentencing. He apologized for his role in the “senseless” actions that led to Brooks’ death.
Brooks’ son said that he hopes this case will prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
Brooks’ brother, Jared Ricks, said that while forgiveness is a long way off, justice being served is a step on that path.
A series of corrections officers delivered multiple beatings to Brooks at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County on Dec. 9, 2024.
The officers repeatedly punched and kicked Brooks in the groin, abdomen and face in the prison’s infirmary. 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 officers. None had turned on their camera, but 30 minutes of video was passively recorded without audio.
The beating, and the fact it was caught on video, provoked outrage. More than a hundred people flocked to Utica to see the indictment be unsealed. Brooks’ father testified before state lawmakers in Albany about reforming the state prison system.
Brooks’ death was ruled a homicide by the Onondaga County Medical Examiner‘s Office. His 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.
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