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Nine correction officers are to go on trial on Wednesday for the brutal beating of an inmate and a subsequent coverup at New York City's Rikers Island jail complex.
Prosecutors in the city's Bronx borough have accused nine guards in the assault of Jahmal Lightfoot, who was left with two fractured eye sockets and a broken nose.
The former assistant chief for security, Eliseo Perez, and a captain, Gerald Vaughn, ordered five other officers to carry out the attack after Lightfoot stared at Perez during a screening for weapons, according to prosecutors.
Three other guards helped conceal the crime by filing inaccurate reports stating that Lightfoot attacked first, authorities said. One of the officers claimed he was slashed, and another officer later produced what he falsely claimed was the weapon Lightfoot used, according to prosecutors.
Rikers Island, which houses approximately 10,000 inmates and is one of the country's largest jail complexes, has been plagued for years by what critics say is a pervasive culture of abuse.
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