One of the corrections officers acquitted in the death of Robert Brooks is suing the state of New York for $5 million, claiming public defamation, humiliation, and more in his lawsuit.
Filed on Jan. 20, Nicholas Kieffer, one of three corrections officers from Marcy Correctional Facility who went to trial in the beating death of Robert Brooks and was acquitted, says in his lawsuit that Special Prosecutor William Fitzpatrick maliciously defamed Kieffer and caused irreparable damage to his reputation.
Kieffer pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, second-degree gang assault, and first-degree offering a false instrument.
“[The special prosecutor] repeatedly stated that Mr. Kieffer was guilty of all said charges, and that he was a member of the “welcoming committee,” a member of the “beat up squad”, and was a “member of a gang of murders[sic],”” the court records read.
Kieffer was one of two corrections officers who were acquitted of their charges in the Oct 2025 trial.
During the trial, Robert Kessler, a corrections officer who worked at Marcy Corrections Facility the day Brooks died, testified that after a beating instigated by former corrections officer Christopher Walrath, Brooks was escorted under his own power and, at one point, Kieffer instructed them to lower Brooks to the ground, face first.
While still handcuffed and bloody after the beating, Kessler testified that Kieffer said he needed to “…spray him” and sprayed Brooks down with pepper spray before calling in a red dot incident call.
Kieffer’s use of force paperwork was presented as evidence and Kieffer wrote in his narrative that he was not present in the arsenal and that he was originally in the infirmary. Keiffer’s report said he saw Kessler struggling on the ground with Brooks and ran to Kessler’s aide, shouting orders at Brooks and then pepper-spraying him.
Kessler said this was a fabrication and that at no time did Kieffer ever give Brooks a direct order or show signs of resisting.
David Longeretta, Kieffer’s attorney, said in court documents that Kieffer’s use-of-force report was rejected by his supervising and superior officer, Sgt. Glenn Trombley, “…who ordered the claimant to craft a story and not to include the incident in the breezeway of the Administration building and not to include the incident in the infirmary treatment room, and to limit the use of force to the walkway area only where the OCspray was used on the incarcerated individual.”
Longeretta writes in court documents that Fitzpatrick’s office engaged in “malicious prosecution” and defamation and lists it, along with tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, negligence in training employees for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision rules, regulations, and policies, and was in breach of contract as Kieffer “followed his employment directives and policies” as the basis of the lawsuit.
As a result, Kieffer’s attorney lists public defamation and humiliation, threats of harm to his person and family, loss of employment and economic advantage, loss of pursuit of his occupation/profession as a corrections officer, monetary damage, loss of resources, and the cost of having to defend himself in the civil suit by the Brooks family as items of damage and injury sustained.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: CO acquitted in Robert Brooks case suing New York State for $5M
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
