Ex-Indiana officer gets year in federal prison for assault on handcuffed suspect

A former northern Indiana police officer who was caught on video repeatedly punching a handcuffed man in 2018 was sentenced Thursday to just over a year in federal prison.

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A U.S. District Court judge in Hammond sentenced Joshua Titus to 12 months and one day in prison, followed by one year of supervised release. The former Elkhart police officer had pleaded guilty in March to a federal charge of deprivation of civil rights and aiding and abetting.

Surveillance video showed Titus and another Elkhart officer, Cory Newland, punching a handcuffed suspect in January 2018 after the man spit on one of them at the Elkhart police station in the city about 100 miles east of Chicago.

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A federal grand jury indicted both officers in March 2019 on a charge of depriving the suspect, Mario Ledesma, of his rights through excessive force. Both later resigned from the Elkhart Police Department after being placed on unpaid administrative leave.

Newland was sentenced in December to 15 months in prison after he, like Titus, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of deprivation of civil rights and aiding and abetting.