By John Cheves
Lexington Herald-Leader
EDDYVILLE, Ky. — The Kentucky Department of Corrections has fired two prison guards and suspended a third after a handcuffed inmate’s head was forced into a wall during an incident that went unreported for more than a month, until the inmate filed a complaint, according to public records.
In late March, Timothy Hall, a 33-year-old inmate at Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville, wrote to Corrections Commissioner Cookie Crews to allege he was assaulted by guards in a stairwell while he was handcuffed for an escort on Feb. 25, 2026.
“Marzilli grabs me by the head and rams my head into the wall,” Hall wrote to Crews. “It just about knocked me out. I went straight to the ground and couldn’t get up for a minute.”
“It busted my face open,” Hall wrote. “You can see it on the camera footage. The nurse had to put bandages on me.”
Hall said he was informed the next day that he had been charged with assaulting a corrections officer as a result of the incident. When he complained, he said, he was ordered to strip naked for a search “just to humiliate me.”
On April 6, Crews referred Hall’s letter to the department’s internal affairs staff, which conducted interviews, reviewed the security video and determined that proper procedure had not been followed, according to the April 22, 2026, internal affairs report.
Capt. Adam Noles and Lt. Raymond Marzilli were fired effective April 14, 2026, for violating the department’s policy on use of force and mechanical restraints, according to their letters of termination.
Sgt. Lucas Stahl was suspended for three days in late April for failing to report the incident, which he witnessed but did not participate in, according to his disciplinary letter.
The Herald-Leader obtained the documents through the Kentucky Open Records Act.
However, the Department of Corrections redacted a detailed, page-long description of what the security video revealed from the incident.
“Any description of what can or cannot be observed on camera from specific angles creates a security risk,” department spokeswoman Morgan Hall told the newspaper.
Reached by phone, Marzilli declined to comment for this story. Noles did not respond to a request for comment.
An escort goes wrong
In his report, Internal Affairs Capt. Shane Spurlock said the guards searched Hall’s cell on Feb. 25, 2026 , and found what they suspected to be homemade alcohol in his sink.
The liquid later tested positive as alcohol, and a breath test determined that Hall was intoxicated, according to Spurlock’s report.
Alcohol is contraband in prison. Hall was handcuffed for a trip from his cellhouse to the restrictive housing unit.
Hall resisted several times during the escorted walk down the stairs, Spurlock wrote. Hall spit at the guards, dropped his body weight and acted as if he was going to head-butt one of them, Spurlock wrote, although he became compliant after Stahl tasered him in the lower back.
But Hall started to resist again at the bottom of the second-floor stairwell, with Noles and Marzilli each holding one side of him, Spurlock wrote.
Those two guards forced him headfirst into a wall, Spurlock wrote. All three men — Noles, Marzilli and Hall — then fell to the floor together, Spurlock wrote. Stahl moved down the stairs and stood above Hall with his taser drawn, according to his disciplinary letter.
The original staff report on the incident said only that the guards “escorted Inmate Hall to the floor for safety and control.”
In his subsequent statement to internal affairs, Stahl said Marzilli “escorted (the) inmate into the window section of the wall.”
The Internal Affairs report does not document what injuries, if any, Hall was confirmed to have sustained.
Recent scandals at Kentucky State Penitentiary
The 856-bed Kentucky State Penitentiary is a castle-like, maximum-security prison built in the 19th century on the Cumberland River in Western Kentucky’s Lyon County. It houses the state’s death row unit.
The prison has seen other scandals in recent months.
The Herald-Leader reported in April that prison officials feared a gang riot last November after inmates discovered a guard was planting contraband tattoo needles in cells during searches, resulting in solitary confinement and other punishments
Inmates wanted revenge on Correctional Officer Christopher A. Ford , who planted the needles, and his fellow guards, according to an Internal Affairs report obtained by the newspaper. Ford quit after he was interviewed by Internal Affairs about the misconduct allegations against him.
In March, Kentucky State Police said prison classification and treatment officer Alysta Mathis, 26, of Dawson Springs , had been charged with third-degree rape and third-degree sodomy after she was caught having sex with an inmate.
According to court documents, the sexual activity was captured on the prison’s surveillance system. Mathis’ case was sent to the Lyon County grand jury on April 15.
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