One of the 10 corrections officers charged in connection with the vicious beating death of a prisoner in central New York last year pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Monday.
The officer, Christopher Walrath, 37, agreed to a plea deal offered by the prosecution, under which he will spend 15 years in prison and receive five years of post-release supervision.
He is the first officer to take a plea deal in connection with the killing of the prisoner, Robert Brooks, 43, who was beaten to death in December at Marcy Correctional Facility in Marcy, N.Y., near Utica. The attack, which took place while Mr. Brooks was handcuffed, was recorded by officers’ body-worn cameras. Mr. Brooks was Black and all the officers seen attacking him appear to be white.
During an appearance Monday morning before a judge in Oneida County Court, Mr. Walrath confirmed that he improperly left his post and joined the attack on Mr. Brooks in three separate areas of the prison. He said that he beat him in the groin and placed him in a chokehold, both acts that are prohibited by departmental guidelines.
Mr. Brooks was declared dead at a hospital in Utica the day after the beating.
William J. Fitzpatrick, the Onondaga County district attorney and the special prosecutor in the case, told reporters on Monday that the attack on Mr. Brooks, who had arrived at the prison just 30 minutes earlier, appeared to have been a sort of violent initiation into life at Marcy Correctional Facility.
He called the attack a “welcome to Marcy,” and said it was “emblematic of the problems here and throughout the system.”