Over a year after the deaths of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, two separate inmates who were beaten to death by corrections officers, all those involved have gone before a judge.
Brooks, an incarcerated individual transferred to Marcy Corrections Facility on Dec. 9, was brutally beaten with his hands cuffed behind his back by corrections officers while in custody. He died as a result of his injuries on Dec. 10. An autopsy was conducted by the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s Office and, in February, Brooks’ death was ruled a homicide.
Nantwi, an inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility, was brutally beaten to death on March 1, 2025, by a Correction Emergency Response Team to the point of unresponsiveness and beaten twice more, with his hands cuffed behind his back. After the death, a grand jury alleged corrections officers got together to plant evidence and submit false testimony.
Trial of Marcy Corrections Officers
Indictments in the Brooks case were unsealed on Feb. 20, 2025 in Judge Robert Bauer’s courtroom in Utica at the Oneida County Courthouse.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office released a response about an hour before Judge Bauer had even sat down in his courtroom, saying that Brooks should be alive and celebrated the indictments.
“This incident is a sobering reminder of the challenges facing our correctional system,” she wrote. “I’ve worked with Commissioner Martuscello on safety reforms, including installing new security cameras, strengthening the Office of Special Investigations and increasing compensation for our hard-working correction officers.”
A total of 10 corrections officers were charged in the death of Robert Brooks.
Those now former correction officers and there charges were:
Of the 10 corrections officers, only four went to trial.
The following is a list of the corrections officers who pleaded guilty and their sentences.
The four corrections who went to trial were David Kingsley, Mathew Galliher, and Nicholas Kieffer.
Kieffer and Galliher were acquitted of all charges, but David Kingsley was found guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to an indeterminate time to life in state prison for second-degree murder and 25 years for first-degree manslaughter.
Michael Fisher’s trial in January almost ended in a deadlock and at the risk of having a re-trial, the former Marcy corrections pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment and was sentenced to six months in the Oneida County Correctional Facility.
Trial of Mid-State Corrections Officers
A total of 14 corrections officers were charged in the death of Nantwi, with the indictments being unsealed on April 16, 2025.
The indictments read in part:
“…Having no clear understanding of why Corrections Emergency Response Team was necessary, defendants entered Messiah Nantwi’s room… during the subsequent encounter, contrary to DOCCS protocols, defendants began beating Messiah Nantwi.”
The following is a list of the corrections officers and their charges.
Of the 14, 13 corrections officers pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
The following is a list of those officers and their sentences.
The only corrections officer who went to trial was Jonah Levi. Of his charges, Levi was found guilty of all of them but second-degree murder. Levi faces a sentence of up to 25 years in state prison and will be back before Judge Michael Nolan on May 27.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Trials end against Mid-State, Marcy COs in inmate deaths
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
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