Two former West Virginia correctional officers were sentenced to decades in prison on Wednesday for their roles in an assault that killed an inmate.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, Mark Holdren, 41, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Johnathan Walters, 33, to 21 years in prison for the March 2022 attack on the Southern Regional Jail.
Quantez Burks, 37, was a pretrial detainee who died less than a day after being booked into Beaver jail on a wanton endangerment charge, according to court records.
When Burks attempted to push past an officer to leave his housing unit, he was taken to an interview room, handcuffed and restrained while officers Holdren and Walters assaulted him. Burks was hit in the head several times, kicked, and pepper-sprayed, according to the Justice Department.
Burks became unresponsive following the assault, so officers, including Walters, carried him to a different pod. Walters swung Burks’ head into a metal door to open it, and the officers lowered his body to the concrete cell floor.
He was declared dead a short time later by emergency medical personnel.
Along with their guilty pleas, Holdren and Walters admitted that the interview room where they detained Burks lacked surveillance cameras. They were also aware that officers used this room and other “blind spots” in the jail to assault inmates suspected of misconduct.
Holdren and Walters are two of six corrections officers indicted in this case. They include former jail supervisor Chad Lester, who was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison in May for his role in the cover-up of the assault.
Prior to the six defendants’ indictment, two other former correctional officers pleaded guilty to conspiring to use excessive force against Burks.
The state medical examiner’s office determined Burks’ primary cause of death was natural, prompting his family to request a private autopsy.
The family’s attorney revealed at a news conference in late 2022 that the second autopsy discovered Burks had multiple areas of blunt force trauma on his body.
The case raised concerns about jail conditions and deaths, and in November 2023, West Virginia agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by inmates.
A federal magistrate judge recommended a default judgment in the lawsuit, citing the intentional destruction of records. That resulted in the dismissal of former Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Executive Officer Brad Douglas and Homeland Security Chief Counsel Phil Sword.