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Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault
Ap CorrespondentSaturday 22 November 2025 10:32 GMT
open image in galleryFILE - This image provided by the New York State Attorney General office shows body camera footage of correction officers beating a handcuffed man, Robert Brooks, at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, N.Y., Dec. 9, 2024. (New York State Attorney General office via AP, File)
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Four prison guards have been jailed for their roles in the brutal beating death of Robert Brooks, an incarcerated Black man, at an upstate New York facility last year. The incident, captured on body-cam videos, sparked widespread outrage and calls for reform.
Nicholas Anzalone and Anthony Farina, who initially faced murder charges, each received 22-year terms after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Michael Mashaw was sentenced to three to nine years, and David Walters to two years, four months to seven years, both for second-degree manslaughter.
The sentences, handed down Friday, followed guilty pleas in September, just two weeks before a trial was due for guards implicated in the 9 December assault on 43-year-old Mr Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility.
Brooks had been serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree assault since 2017 and was transferred to Marcy from a nearby lockup on the night he was beaten. The videos show Brooks being struck in the chest with a shoe, lifted by his neck and then dropped.
During the hearing, prosecutors read statements from Brooks' relatives, including his brother, Jared Ricks, who wrote that he hopes the “welcoming committee” shows the four defendants more grace when they arrive in state prison as incarcerated people than they showed his brother, Syracuse.com reported.
The victim's son, Robert Brooks Jr., wrote that watching the video of his father’s fatal beating was like watching a horror movie.
“I pray this case teaches others that they can’t treat incarcerated people like animals,” he wrote.
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, the special prosecutor in the case, said the two men were not allowed to read their statements themselves due to objections from all four defense attorneys after Fitzpatrick failed to file the required paperwork.
open image in galleryCorrectional officer Christopher Walrath, center, appears in Oneida County Court, Monday, May 5, 2025, in Utica, N.Y., to enter a guilty plea for manslaughter in the December 2024 death of inmate Robert Brooks. (AP Photo/Michael Hill, file) (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)The first plea in the case came last May, when a guard charged with murder pleaded guilty to manslaughter under a deal with prosecutors. Christopher Walrath, who resigned, was sentenced in August to 15 years in prison.
Another guard pleaded guilty later in May to attempted tampering with physical evidence and was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge.
The trial of three other guards charged with murder and first-degree manslaughter concluded last month with a jury convicting David Kingsley on both counts but acquitting the other two, Mathew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer. Kingsley faces a potential life term when he's sentenced, while the last guard, Michael Fisher, is scheduled to stand trial in January on a second-degree manslaughter charge.
Fitzpatrick is also prosecuting guards in the March 1 fatal beating of Messiah Nantwi at another Marcy lockup, the Mid-State Correctional Facility. Eight guards have reached plea deals in the case, while five others are scheduled to stand trial in March, including two who are charged with murder.
Both prisons are about 180 miles (290 kilometers) northwest of New York City.
