Ex-Correctional Officers in Hawaii Sentenced in 2015 Inmate Beating

Four former correctional officers in Hawaii have been handed prison sentences ranging from one to 12 years for beating an inmate in 2015, breaking his jaw, nose and eye socket, and trying to cover up the abuse, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The inmate, a man who was held at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center and whose name federal prosecutors did not release, was kicked in the face, head and body, prosecutors said. The four officers then lied about the abuse, writing false reports and providing false testimony, according to court filings.

Two of the former officers, Jordan DeMattos, 31, and Craig Pinkney, 39, were sentenced this month. Jonathan Taum, 50, was sentenced in November, and Jason Tagaloa, 31, was sentenced in December, according to the Justice Department.

“Physical abuse and corruption by officials working inside jails and prisons is unacceptable, no matter where it occurs,” Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general with the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, said in a statement Wednesday.

The department, Ms. Clarke added, “will vigorously prosecute abusive officers to ensure that the civil rights of all people, including those in custody, are protected.”

The four officers were transporting an inmate described by prosecutors as nonviolent across the facility on June 15, 2015, when he became frightened. The officers took him to the ground and began assaulting him, prosecutors said.

In a beating that lasted two minutes in a prison recreation yard, prosecutors said last year, the defendants punched and kicked the inmate in the head and body while he was lying facedown in a pool of his own blood.

Later, the four officers falsified information about the attack in official reports filed between June 15, 2015 and Dec. 20, 2016, according to court records. They were terminated in December 2016, and three of them were indicted in June 2020.

Mr. DeMattos was sentenced on Tuesday to one year and one day in prison, the Justice Department said on Wednesday. In December 2020, he pleaded guilty to three felony offenses, including assault, and testified against co-defendants, who were handed longer sentences.

The three other correctional officers were found guilty at a joint trial of violating the rights of an inmate by assaulting him and lying to cover up the incident, the Department of Justice said.

Mr. Taum, who prosecutors said supervised the beating and orchestrated the conspiracy to cover it up, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Nov. 16. Mr. Tagaloa was sentenced to eight years on Dec. 5. Mr. Pinkney was sentenced to five years on Jan. 5.

Mr. Tagaloa “delivered the most vicious punches and kicks to the victim’s head,” prosecutors said. Mr. Pinkney struck the victim and held him down as Mr. Tagaloa beat him, they said.

Mr. DeMattos’ lawyer, Richard Gronna, said in an interview on Wednesday that he and his client, who was 23 at the time of the incident, welcomed the lower sentence.

“There was a lot of peer pressure and testosterone in the facility, along with new guards and inmates alike, all trying to prove something of themselves — which led to many situations similar to this,” Mr. DeMattos wrote in a letter to the court.

Mr. DeMattos also apologized, saying he would “do what was right from the beginning” if put in that situation again.

A lawyer representing Mr. Tagaloa on his appeal declined to comment, saying that she was waiting to receive court transcripts. Representatives for Mr. Taum and Mr. Pinkney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Hawaii Community Correctional Center, where the four correctional officers worked, is spread over two sites with 226 beds, according to its website.

The case was investigated by the F.B.I. Honolulu Field Office.

“These correctional officers were in a position of public trust and violated that trust not only by acts of violence against an inmate,” said Steven Merrill, a special agent in charge with the field office in Honolulu, “but also by attempting to cover it up.”