Ex-West Virginia jail guard pleads guilty for beating inmates in camera blind spots

A former corrections officer at a West Virginia jail has pleaded guilty to conspiring with other guards to take inmates to areas without surveillance cameras and assault them as punishment or retaliation. He admitted taking part in the use of unreasonable force on at least seven occasions.

Nathaniel Pack, 29, pleaded guilty on Thursday to a federal conspiracy charge, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He worked at the Southern Regional Jail in Beaver, about 50 miles south of Charleston.

Pack admitted that he and other officers assaulted inmates between April 2020 and March 2022, including pretrial detainees who were handcuffed and no longer posed a threat.

The officers took inmates to interview rooms and cells known as “blind spots,” allowing them to carry out the assaults without being recorded. They targeted inmates they believed had engaged in misconduct or disobeyed orders.

In November 2020, Pack and other officers handcuffed a detainee who had been kicking his cell door and took him to an interview room outside the view of surveillance cameras. Pack admitted that they punched and struck the detainee while he was restrained, causing injuries.

In July 2021, the officers took another handcuffed detainee to the same room and struck him in the face and body for failing to follow verbal commands. The attack left the detainee with cuts and bleeding around his head.

Pack admitted that he assaulted a third detainee in January 2022 for calling another officer a slur. He struck the man in the face inside the interview room before taking him to a cell that was also a blind spot, where he repeatedly punched him while he was handcuffed.

During another incident on March 1, 2022, Pack told medical workers to wait several minutes before checking on a detainee who had been taken to the interview room. He admitted that he wanted to give the other officers time to assault the man.

Pack and the other officers also prepared false reports denying that unreasonable force had been used and omitted injuries suffered by inmates to avoid investigations, according to his plea agreement.

Pack is scheduled to be sentenced on December 4. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.