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| Former corrections officer pleads guilty in excessive force case |
| By reviewjournal.com - Jeff German |
| Published: 12/17/2013 |
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A former North Las Vegas corrections officer avoided standing trial Monday on felony charges in a five-year-old case of excessive force when he pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge. Stuart Barlow Johnson, 47, faced up to five years in prison if convicted of the felony charges stemming from his 2008 confrontation with a handcuffed inmate at the now-closed North Las Vegas Detention Center. Instead, as part of a deal struck over the weekend, federal prosecutors will recommend probation at his March 17 sentencing before U.S. District Judge James Mahan. Johnson was indicted in April on charges of deprivation of rights under color of law and falsifying a document after the jailhouse confrontation. Those charges were dropped, and Johnson pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor version of the deprivation of rights charge. Both Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Dickinson and Johnson’s defense lawyer, Thomas Pitaro, declined comment outside the courtroom Monday. The case focused on Johnson’s Nov. 29, 2008, altercation with Doyle Hedger, a federal inmate at the detention center. In an April 14 story, the Review-Journal disclosed the civil rights investigation and reported that it had led to a dispute between the Justice Department and the North Las Vegas Police Department, which fought the surrender of subpoenaed records. Hedger filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2010 alleging Johnson body slammed him to the concrete floor while he was handcuffed, causing serious head lacerations. Johnson, North Las Vegas and the detention center all were named as defendants. At the time of the confrontation, which was captured on jailhouse video, Hedger was in federal custody after his arrest for violating the terms of supervised release on a felony firearms conviction. Read More. |
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