Former NY prison guard accused of stomping on inmate's head goes on trial for murder

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) — A former upstate New York prison guard on trial for murder repeatedly stomped on the head of a 22-year-old inmate during a brutal beating by a group of guards, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

Jonah Levi was the first guard to go on trial after 10 were indicted last April in connection with death of Messiah Nantwi at Mid-State Correctional Facility on March 1, 2025 — a time when the state prison system was reeling from a wildcat strike.

Prosecutors said Nantwi suffered 69 separate body blows from guards who used their fists, boots and batons in a series of beatings.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick told jurors in his opening statement that investigators collected DNA evidence from boots taken from Levi and a second guard facing a top charge of second-degree murder.

“With utter depravity and recklessness, you will hear eyewitness testimony that Jonah Levi multiple times stomped Messiah Nantwi on the head. And pathetically, his brother officers did nothing,” said Fitzpatrick, the special prosecutor.

Nantwi died due to massive head trauma and other injuries to his body from the beatings, according to prosecutors.

Levi's attorney, Lewis G. Spicer, told the jury that the use of force that morning was justified given Nantwi's aggressive behavior. He said Levi did not use any force that resulted in Nantwi's death.

“Mr. Levi was doing everything he was supposed to do,” Spicer said.

Nantwi's death came several months after Robert Brooks was fatally beaten at a separate prison just across the road from Mid-State. Prisoner advocates say the two beatings illustrated a culture of violence by guards at New York prisons.

His death also came as New York prisons were struggling to function during a three-week wildcat strike by guards upset over working conditions, which forced the governor to send in National Guard troops.

Levi was part of an emergency response team called to Nantwi’s room to help National Guard members who sought backup after Nantwi was uncooperative with a prisoner headcount. Fitzpatrick said the situation was resolved by the time the response team arrived.

Several guards began beating Nantwi after he refused to be handcuffed and grabbed a guard’s vest. The beatings intensified after Nantwi bit a guard's hand, prosecutors claim.

“He’s dead because he protested cuffing up and because he tried to bite someone's finger,” Fitzpatrick said.

Prosecutors say guards falsely claimed a makeshift knife had been recovered as part of a cover-up effort.

Lewis told the jury that prosecutors offered an “extremely sanitized” version of events. Nantwi, who was high on synthetic marijuana, was the initial aggressor, Spicer said.

“You're going to hear him fighting back,” Spicer said.

While Brooks’ beating months earlier was captured on body cameras, video footage will likely play less of a role in this trial. Prosecutors say some guards involved in Nantwi’s death were not wearing mandated body cameras, or turned them off, or looked the other way.

Levi also is charged with first-degree manslaughter, first-degree gang assault, second-degree gang assault, fifth-degree conspiracy and first-degree offering a false instrument for file.

Levi is first guard to face a jury in the case. More than half a dozen others have pleaded guilty to lesser charges related to the incident and the alleged cover-up.

Nantwi entered the state prison system in May 2024 and had been serving a five-year sentence for second-degree criminal possession of a weapon related to an exchange of gunfire with police officers in 2021. He was shot multiple times, while the officers were uninjured.

Prosecutors in Manhattan say Nantwi shot and killed Jaylen Duncan, 19, on a Harlem street in April 2023. The following evening, they say, he shot and killed Brandon Brunson, 36, at a Harlem smoke shop after an argument.