WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd November, 2022) A former employee of the Hawaii Community Correctional Center will serve 144 months in prison for assaulting an incarcerated individual and for his role in leading a conspiracy over several years to cover up the abuse, the US Justice Department said.
"(O)n June 15, 2015, Jonathan Taum, 50, supervised his two co-defendants and a third correctional officer while they transported an inmate across the facility," the Justice Department said in a press release on Monday. "The inmate became frightened in the course of the transfer and Taum's fellow officers took the non-violent inmate to the ground and repeatedly punched and kicked him in the face, head, and body."
The officers broke the inmate's jaw, orbital socket and nose, the release said.
"Taum oversaw over the next several years a cover-up conspiracy that included writing false reports, submitting false statements to internal affairs and providing false testimony to disciplinary board members," the release said.
US Attorney Clare Connors for the District of Hawaii said in the release that protecting the civil rights of everyone in the community, including inmates, is at the heart of the US system of justice.
"Supervisors in our correctional facilities are held to a higher standard of responsibility and as this case demonstrates, we will prosecute those who criminally violate the civil rights of those in their custody," Connors added.
