A former supervisor at a eastern Kentucky prison has been found guilty of making up reports to hide the fact that corrections personnel beat up two detainees.
Kevin Pearce, who used to be a lieutenant in the federal Bureau of Prisons, was found guilty on Monday on two charges of obstruction after a six-day trial. Pearce was a supervisor in the U.S. Penitentiary Big Sandy in eastern Kentucky prison when he was 38 years old.
He could go to prison for up to 20 years, and he will find out on July 5.
A federal prison superintendent in Kentucky was found guilty of hiding the fact that two corrections officers beat up inmates. (Courtesy Bureau of Prisons)
According to testimony shown at trial, Pearce was in charge of two prison officers in 2021 when they beat up an inmate by pepper spraying him and kicking him in the head.
A press release from the U.S. Department of Justice says that the two guards of Eastern Kentucky Prison, Samuel Patrick and Clinton Pauley, said at the trial that they attacked the Eastern Kentucky Prison prisoner because he was walking too slowly to his cell.
Both said the inmate of Eastern Kentucky Prison was not a threat, but Pearce produced a report that said the inmate was violent and left out the fact that the inmate was kicked when he was on the ground, according to the Justice Department.
The testimony at the trial showed that a month later, the two guards attacked another inmate. This time, it was an inmate who had asked Pearce to protect him from other convicts.
The two guards “struck him repeatedly in the head and body,” and Pearce afterward produced a bogus report that said the inmate went back to his cell without any trouble.
Patrick and Pauley were charged in May with violating the constitutional rights of victims while they were on the job as police officers. They both testified at Pearce’s trial, and in February, both men agreed to plea deals with the prosecutors. They are going to get their punishment in June.
“Prisoners have the same rights under the law while they are doing their time,” said Jodi Cohen, who is in charge of the FBI‘s Louisville field office.
“When a few correctional officers choose to break these rules, either by hurting people or trying to hide what they did, the honesty of all officers is called into question.”
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