By Rick Sobey
Boston Herald
BOSTON — Inmates who pummeled correction officers in a high-profile attack that eventually led to a $6 million prisoner settlement ended up receiving payouts from the deal, the Herald has learned.
The $6 million inmate settlement has been shrouded in mystery for more than a year, as the Massachusetts Department of Correction refused multiple times to provide a list of the 150 inmates who received payments. It was the state’s largest publicly funded settlement last year.
After the Herald reported last week that DOC would not divulge the inmates’ names from the big class-action lawsuit, an internal DOC memo was leaked to the Herald.
That memo lists the names of 69 of the 150 inmates who were eligible for settlement payouts. Of those 69 prisoners, six of them were charged in the 2020 attack on correction officers at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center. Four correction officers were hospitalized as a result of the attack.
Inmates received payouts of tens of thousands of dollars from the $6 million settlement.
“Unbelievable,” state Rep. Michael Soter told the Herald in response to the charged inmates receiving payments. “They’re getting rewarded for something they caused. It’s so backwards, it’s not even funny.”
The $6.75 million settlement — $5.75 million for 150 prisoners, and the remaining $1 million for attorneys’ costs and fees — was related to the altercation at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley.
In early 2020, several inmates at the maximum-security prison assaulted correction officers, resulting in serious injuries to four officers. Sixteen prisoners were charged in the attack.
Following the assault, the prison was placed in secure status for nearly a month, as tactical responses were carried out in an effort to restore order to the facility.
Inmates as a result filed a class-action suit, calling it “a brutal and lengthy campaign of excessive force and unconstitutional treatment.”
That class-action lawsuit eventually led to the $6.75 million settlement, which was distributed in varying amounts to the 150 current and formerly incarcerated individuals.
Overall, 16 inmates were charged in the assault. Because DOC refused to provide a list of the 81 other inmates in the settlement for 150 prisoners, the Herald could not confirm whether the 10 additional alleged attackers received payouts.
The DOC announced the settlement in May 2025, a DOC spokesperson told the Herald.
“Since 2020, DOC has strengthened its use-of-force policies, de-escalation and duty-to-intervene training, restraint protocols, and Special Operations Response Unit activation procedures,” the spokesperson added.
Other policy changes include expansion of body-worn camera requirements and changes to policies regarding K-9 deployment, disciplinary investigation policies, and accountability for staff conduct.
“Many of these reforms were initiated before the settlement and reflect DOC’s broader commitment to continuous improvement, safety and accountability,” the spokesperson said.
The six charged inmates who the Herald confirmed were eligible for payouts via the leaked internal memo were: Israel Perez, Jovani Molinari, Giovanni Buchanan, Carlos Bastos, Elosko Brown, and Jason Velez-Acosta.
All of the inmates were charged with two counts of assault and battery causing serious bodily injury, and four counts assault and battery on a correction officer.
Molinari, Buchanan, Bastos, Brown, and Velez-Acosta faced additional charges.
Since the 2020 attack, three of those six inmates pleaded guilty, while the cases remain open for the three other prisoners.
The three who pleaded guilty were: Molinari, Perez, and Buchanan.
Molinari was sentenced to 4 years, Perez was sentenced to 4-5 years, and Buchanan was sentenced to 4-6 years.
Soter, a Bellingham Republican, in the past has called for accountability in DOC — and for steps to be taken to ensure correction officers are safe, secure and protected in their workplace.
“The correction officers who were severely hurt should now have the right to countersue for the damages of the settlement the inmates got,” Soter said.
“This was obviously an aggravated assault on our safety officers. Where is their due justice on all of this?” he added. “It’s so, so backwards. Very frustrating. Something has got to change.”
The $6.75 million settlement represents the Bay State’s largest payout in the last fiscal year, according to the Office of the Comptroller’s database.
The Herald has been seeking more details about the state’s biggest settlement, requesting the names of the inmates who received payouts — and the specific settlement amounts for each inmate.
But the Department of Correction has been withholding that information from the public. DOC in its response to the Herald’s public records request cited the safety of inmates and their families.
“The names of incarcerated individuals who received compensation because of a settlement agreement may be withheld from public disclosure based on statutory exemptions… as disclosures ‘could endanger the privacy or safety of the subject individuals’ ” and their family members, a DOC spokesperson wrote.
“… The disclosure of personal information, including the identification of incarcerated individuals and the specific settlement amount disseminated to each, could lead to the location and identity of relatives, making them potential targets for threats in an attempt to obtain settlement funds for illicit purposes,” the DOC spokesperson added. “These individuals’ rights to protection against an unwarranted intrusion of privacy outweigh the public’s interest where that invasion of privacy places them in physical and financial danger.”
In the class-action lawsuit, the plaintiffs said the officers in a “Retaliatory Force Campaign” attacked more than 100 prisoners using “extreme, malicious, and cruel methods of force.”
This included officers: beating and kicking prisoners; gouging eyes; smashing faces into the ground or wall; deploying Taser guns, pepper ball guns, and other chemical agents; ordering K9s to menace and bite prisoners; and more.
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