Former prison guard pleads guilty to manslaughter in New York inmate’s fatal beating

One of multiple corrections officers charged in connection with the fatal beating of an inmate at an upstate New York prison last year pleaded guilty to manslaughter Monday and agreed to serve 11 years in prison.

Former guard Caleb Blair had initially faced the most serious charges filed against the officers, including second-degree murder, in the death of 22-year-old Messiah Nantwi at the Mid-State Correctional Facility near Utica on March 1, 2025. Nantwi died of massive head trauma and other injuries, and Blair was one of two guards who prosecutors said inflicted head wounds.

Prosecutors said Nantwi suffered 69 separate body blows from guards who used their fists, boots and batons in a series of beatings. Nantwi, who was serving a five-year sentence for exchanging gunfire with police officers, had objected to being handcuffed by guards while resisting a prisoner headcount before the beatings, an indictment said.

Blair pleaded guilty in Oneida County Court in Utica just before jury selection was to begin Monday for a trial. Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who prosecuted the case, said Nantwi’s family was OK with the plea deal.

“I’m satisfied that justice was done,” Fitzpatrick told The Associated Press in a phone interview after the hearing. “There has to be systemic changes in the facilities regarding relationships between (corrections officers) and incarcerated individuals, and I hope that people just don’t turn the page.”

Blair’s lawyer, William Sullivan, said his client accepted responsibility for his actions. He said Blair had been a model corrections officer with no history of being disciplined and had served overseas in the National Guard.

“It was a terrible combination of eight minutes, six minutes, in that cell that ruined an otherwise exemplary life,” Sullivan said. “If you had a daughter and Caleb Blair came home to ask for her hand, you’d be proud.”

Sentencing was set for June 17,

Lawyers for Nantwi’s family said his relatives primarily wanted accountability for his death.

“Most of the defendants here are going to jail. And hopefully the impact of that will resonate throughout the state prisons, which for far too long have tolerated and turned a blind eye to violence against inmates,” attorneys Ed Ward and Katie Rosenfeld said in a statement.

The other former officer who Fitzpatrick said inflicted head blows to Nantwi, Jonah Levi — who denied the allegation — was found guilty of manslaughter and other crimes by a jury last month and awaits sentencing.

A third former guard, Craig Klemick, pleaded guilty on Friday to offering a false instrument for filing, a crime commonly charged for lying in reports about an incident. Several other former guards have pleaded guilty, and only one case remains to be tried.

In an initial indictment of 10 corrections officers last year, six were accused of assaulting Nantwi, while the other four were accused of participating in a cover-up that included filing false reports, plotting to plant a makeshift knife and cleaning up blood in Nantwi’s room in an effort to destroy evidence.

The beating occurred during a wildcat strike by many officers that forced the governor to send in National Guard members to help keep order. Nantwi’s death also came several months after Robert Brooks was fatally beaten at a separate prison just across the road from Mid-State.