The Star-Ledger (Newark N.J.)
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Four corrections officers and two supervisors at the Essex County Jail were suspended after an inmate was released from his cell for a “boxing match” with a corrections officer, authorities said.
The fight was recorded by surveillance cameras and sent inmate Miguel Torres, 34, to a hospital for treatment of cuts and bruises.
The bout happened July 23, an hour after Torres complained that another inmate, Rodrigo Arocho, had been beaten. Arocho, 31, was treated for a broken tooth, authorities said.
One guard knocked Torres to the ground and another guard then struck him, unnamed sources told the newspaper.
The videotape was sent last week to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, county counsel Francis Giantomasi said.
“We take all allegations very seriously, and we are conducting a full-scale investigation,” Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Charlotte Smith said.
Suspended were guards John Bocchino, Joseph Mastriani, Terrance Sheffield and Tamara Green, Sgt. Crystal Leake and Capt. Frank LaMotta.
“The majority of the acts were done by Sheffield,” Giantomasi said.
The officers will appeal the disciplinary action, said attorney William Sayers, who represents the Policemen’s Benevolent Association, Local 382.
“The officers were just defending themselves,” said Local 382 president Joseph Amato.
Torres and Arocho were in a closed custody cellblock, in which only one inmate is in each cell for 23 hours a day.
Torres had finished his sentence for receiving stolen property and possessing a hypodermic needle in March, but was being held on two counts of spitting on a corrections employee, county corrections director Scott Faunce said.
Arocho completed a sentence last month for several convictions, including theft, but was being held on detainers from the Newark Police Department, Faunce said.