CHARLESTON, WV (LOOTPRESS) – To former Southern Regional Jail corrections officers have issued “guilty” pleas with regard to their respective roles in an assault which led to the death of an inmate in March of 2022.
The United States Department of Justice has announced that Jacob Boothe and Ashley Toney have plead “guilty” to violating the civil rights of an inmate incarcerated at Southern Regional identified only by the initials “Q.B.” The officers in question reportedly failed to intervene in a physical assault on the inmate by other officers.
It has been confirmed that both pleas come as part of plea agreements, with each former SRJ officer acknowledging that they responded to a situation during which “Q.B” is said to have attempted pushing past a corrections officer when leaving his assigned pod.
Boothe and Toney are said to have handcuffed and restrained “Q.B” before escorting him to an interview room – confirmed by Toney to be a “blind spot” in the jail where surveillance cameras could not document what transpired. In the interview room, he was struck and injured by other officers while restrained. The officers admitted to their duty to intervene in this instance of unreasonable force against an inmate.
Toney also admitted to having conspired with other corrections officers to advise colleagues to provide false information to parties investigating the crimes.
Boothe and Toney are two of six former corrections officers who have been indicated by a federal grand jury in relation to the circumstances, with the four remaining defendants set to see trail on October 8, 2024.
Former Southern Regional Jail officers Steven Nicholas Wimmer and Andrew Fleshman previously pled guilty to conspiring with colleagues for the use of unreasonable force against the inmate in question. These pleas were issued on November 2, 2023.
Boothe and Toney pleaded guilty on Thursday before United States District Court Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, with sentencing having been scheduled for November 4, 2024. The pleas agreements for each officer indicate that each faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
While the identity of “Q.B.” was not explicitly revealed in the announcement, the details of the timeline correspond to the February 28, 2022, arrest and March 1, 2022, death of Southern Regional Jail inmate Quantez Burks.
