By Thomas Zambito
The Star-Ledger
NEWARK — Once they were the closest of friends, watching football games together, spending time with one another’s families or lifting weights during downtime from their jobs as correctional officers at the Essex County jail.
But today Officer Joseph Hernandez took the witness stand in state Superior Court in Newark and offered damning testimony against his old friend, Officer Carlton Clark, who’s facing 20 years in prison for beating a female inmate in 2011 after she provoked him with an off-color sexual suggestion.
Hernandez said he repeatedly tried to get Clark to stop pummeling the inmate, Emirlene Philemon, 20, during the Aug. 26, 2011 incident at the jail.
“As he’s striking her, her head is hitting the ground pretty hard,” Hernandez recalled as Assistant Prosecutor Peter Polidoro showed him a video of the attack captured by jailhouse surveillance cameras.
Full story: Essex County corrections officer testifies against friend on trial for assaulting female inmate