By Lori Pilger
Lincoln Journal Star, Neb.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Correctional officers testified Thursday about how they feared for their co-worker’s life as an inmate choked him to the point of unconsciousness inside a Lincoln prison in 2022.
Before the end of the bench trial, Audun Green, the man accused of second-degree assault and assault by strangulation, had taken the stand claiming one of his multiple personalities had done it.
His attorney argued Green was insane at the time.
By then, the judge already had heard the testimony of Dr. Kirk Newring of the Lincoln Regional Center, who evaluated Green and found that he likely was feigning (or faking) aspects of his mental illness, despite having been diagnosed with schizoaffective or bipolar disorder and intermittent explosive disorder — not multiple personalities.
The assault at issue happened May 17, 2022, at the Reception and Treatment Center on West Van Dorn Street on the southwest edge of Lincoln.
Department of Correctional Services Corporal Wesley Dickinson testified that he was working at turnkey, which controls foot traffic through the different parts of the prison, when Green came to the door wanting to go to the indoor gym.
But Green’s color-coded ID showed it wasn’t his turn, so Dickinson turned him away. That’s when Green became extremely agitated, he said.
Dickinson told him to leave the area, and after several orders, he did. But he said Green returned a few seconds later, making threats.
“Do you know what I can f*—*ing do to you?” he remembered him saying.
Another inmate was in the door, so he couldn’t close it.
“About that time, Mr. Green walked in and he started assaulting me,” Dickinson said.
He said Green punched him in the face about three times before Green wrapped his arm around his neck and started choking him.
They fell to the floor. Dickinson said he couldn’t breathe and lost consciousness.
Other staff members quickly ran to his aid.
One of them, Jolean Brooks-Nesbitt, said she had been working at turnkey that day, too. Green’s raised voice caught her attention, then she saw him punch Dickinson and ran over, she said.
She yelled for a nearby sergeant to make an emergency call for a staff assault. And she and another corporal tried to pull Green off Dickinson. He had his arm across the corporal’s windpipe and was pushing down, she said.
“At that point, you know, I feared for his life,” Brooks-Nesbitt said. “So that’s when I went into the next of what’s called the use of force. We’re at deadly assault here.”
She saw Dickinson’s eyes roll back in his head and struck Green’s head with her knee and started punching him to get him off, thinking her co-worker was about to die, she said.
When Green let go, she stopped and he was put into handcuffs.
Dickinson slowly came to, woozy for a few seconds, confused and disoriented. A fellow staffer lifted him to his feet.
He and another corporal, Patrick Beck, who is a deputy sheriff now, went to a Lincoln hospital after photos were taken of their wounds. Beck said Green had bit his hand and he had a large scrape on his wrist.
Dickinson said he had bruises and scrapes but nothing broken.
Brooks-Nesbitt had a sprained wrist and scrapes and bruises.
Green testified that he had no idea what happened. His multiple personalities jump in and out and keep him in the dark about what’s happening. One of them, Bruce, is a little violent, he said.
His attorney, Candice Wooster, asked if, when this happened, he knew what he was doing. No, Green answered.
“And you don’t believe at this time that you’re responsible for the crime?” she said.
“No, we have too many mental problems going on here,” Green said.
On cross examination, he told Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Charles Byrd that he blacks out and doesn’t know what he resorts to.
“I know people tell me I do stuff,” he said.
Byrd pointed out his multiple write-ups for assaults.
In the end, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson found 29-year-old Green guilty of both of the felonies, which the state is seeking to enhance under the habitual criminal statutes because of his prior convictions.
She set his sentencing in June.
He’s already serving 11 to 19 years for multiple assaults, most of them after he had gone to prison for a felony assault.
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