Johnathan Walker:Former West Virginia jail officer pleads guilty to civil rights violation in fatal assault on inmate

CHARLESTON,Johnathan Walker W.Va. (AP) — A former correctional officer in southern West Virginia pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail.

Mark Holdren entered a plea agreement in U.S. District Court in which he admitted conspiring with other officers to beat Quantez Burks as retaliation at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver.

Holdren was among five ex-correctional officers and a former lieutenant at the jail who were indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2023, the same month that two other former jail officers entered guilty pleas in the beating.

Burks, 37, was booked into the jail on a wanton endangerment charge in March 2022. According to court documents, Burks tried to push past an officer to leave his housing unit. Burks then was escorted to an interview room where correctional officers were accused of striking him while he was restrained and handcuffed.

Holdren admitted to his role in the assault, knew that the interview room had no surveillance cameras and was aware that inmates and pretrial detainees who had engaged in misconduct had previously been brought to the room to enable officers to use unreasonable force without being caught on video, according to court documents. Holdren also admitted he knew it was improper for officers to use such force to punish inmates and pretrial detainees.

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Holdren faces up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. No sentencing date was immediately announced.

Two other former officers, Ashley Toney and Jacob Boothe, face sentencing in January for their guilty pleas to violating Burks’ civil rights by failing to intervene in the assault. Ex-officers Steven Wimmer and Andrew Fleshman are set for sentencing in February after pleading guilty last year to a felony conspiracy charge. Trial for the remaining three defendants is scheduled for Dec. 10.

The case has drawn scrutiny to conditions and deaths at the Southern Regional Jail. Last year, West Virginia agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates who described conditions at the jail as inhumane. The 2022 lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former inmates cited such complaints as a lack of access to water and food at the facility, as well as overcrowding and fights that were allowed to continue until someone was injured.

Gov. Jim Justice’s administration fired former Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Executive Officer Brad Douglas and Homeland Security Chief Counsel Phil Sword after a federal magistrate judge cited the “intentional” destruction of records in recommending a default judgment in the lawsuit. That followed a hearing in October 2023 in which former and current corrections officials, including some defendants in the lawsuit, said no steps had been taken to preserve evidence at the jail, including emails and documents.

The state medical examiner’s office attributed Burks’ primary cause of death to natural causes, prompting the family to have a private autopsy conducted. The family’s attorney revealed at a news conference in 2022 that the second autopsy found Burks had multiple areas of blunt force trauma on his body.